


First Friday

by PaxCallow



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, Lemony Narrator, M/M, Minor Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-28 16:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7647844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxCallow/pseuds/PaxCallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Included in this fic: Max and Johnny wake up late and decide to skip school together and have fun.</p><p>Other things included in this fic: An 80′s soundtrack! Discussions on nostalgia! Internal monologue! Green Santas! Public disturbances! Art! Homages to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! Acceptable breaks from reality! Lots of dialogue! So much dialogue! So much running! Corny tropey conflict! Corny tropes! Phones! Jackets! Now officially hosted on AO3!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Working For The Weekend

               Max wakes up to a kick to the ribcage.

               Well, it’s less of a kick and more of a shove. A shove from someone stretching out their legs that sandwiches him against the footboard of the bed and squeezes the awake into him. He half-consciously notices his legs dangle over the edge, and it’s at this point that he realizes he isn’t in his _own_ bed. The footboard he’s just been acquainted with is definitely metal, not wood, which he knows on account of it being very _cold_ and _on his face._ Good start to consciousness.

               He reaches up to rub his eyes and face as the foot unplants itself from his ribs and the sigh of someone else waking up breaks the silence.

              Relative silence. On the TV across the room, albeit at a low volume, an [old song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnjVy8q4yfA) plays on a loop in the soundtrack menu of _Burnout_. He imagines it’s been like that all night. That fills in the rest of his memory, and he remembers, specifically, that he definitely didn’t try to sleep over here last night.

               Here being…

               Ready for this one?

               “Hey, geekshow,” Johnny grumbles, cracking his knuckles. He seems completely unsurprised by Max’s presence.

               Johnny Jhonny’s house. Yup.

               Max slowly props himself up on his elbows and looks around. He’s wearing jeans. The lights are still on from whenever it was the two of them passed out, and the blackout curtains are pulled over the window. That, coupled with the game they never technically stopped playing, gives this all the effect of a lost sense of time.

               “Hey. I’m uh, still here. Whoops,” he says, scratching his head. He yawns and swats an empty can of soda off Johnny’s bed. “Guess we both dozed off. Man, I’ve had accidental sleepovers before, but never on a—”

              He pinches the bridge of his nose as it hits him. It’s what they deserve, staying up so late. “On a school night. Oh, this is disorienting.”

               Johnny sits up with his eyes still shut and fumbles blindly around for his phone, right past the point into humorousness. He could open his eyes, but he doesn’t, and so this show lasts a good twenty seconds until his hand lands on its place on his nightstand. Max’s own phone is on the floor somewhere. Many things are on the floor.

               “What time is it, anyway?” Max mutters. He untangles himself from a stray sheet. What are they even supposed to do in this situation? School must be hours off, but this completely throws off the rhythm…

               “I’unno,” comes the reply as Johnny clicks his phone on and creaks his eyes open. He blinks a few times to adjust to sight, particularly the especially jarring sight of his phone screen. Max touches his feet to the floor. He feels… very well rested. Like, almost too well.

               But either way, he remarks, “Probably something really awkward like 2 AM or 4 AM or something. I hope you like your sleep schedules on the _ruined_ side, because…”

               Johnny’s eyebrows shoot up just slightly like he’s seen something of mild interest. He hums, clicks the phone off, and places it on his nightstand.

               “What?”

               He glances over at Max as if he’d briefly forgotten he was there. Then he stretches his arms, yawning. “It’s uh… 10:15.”

               “… We were awake at 10:15,” Max says as he looks over, puzzled. Johnny blinks back at him.

               Now we pause.

               And pause…

               “ _WHAT?!_ ” Max squawks.

               He springs from the bed within a second and stumble-runs across the floor, heading to the window. He throws the blackout curtains open, letting in blinding morning daylight on top of the light already on, much to the redhead’s chagrin. 10:15. AM.

               “What the flipping _flip!_ ” Max cries, running his hands through his short hair. “How did—how did we sleep so long??”

               Johnny, with a blanket over his head and having hardly moved an inch other than to put it there, shrugs. “Mmm. I needa wake up with an alarm but I put my phone on silent earlier.”

               Max flops his hands against his sides in a helpless shrug. “Why…?”

               “’Cause it was bein’ so…” He waves his hand vaguely, searching for a word. “Audible.”

               “Man, I hate you a lot.” Max darts to where his hat lies on the floor, quickly putting it on. He shakes his head and continues scurrying around, and Johnny continues not moving.

               “Don’t freak out, Mux,” he says.

               “I will _absolutely_ freak out, Jhonny!” Max declares, pointing accusingly at the amorphous blob on Johnny’s bed. “This is gonna be a whole big _thing_ now.” He stops and spins around in the center of the sty of a room, looking for his backpack. “I have a routine. I mean it’s like… a _rut,_ actually, but I have it, and—okay, where is my backpack.”

               “Prob’ly yer house, genius,” Johnny laughs. He pushes the blanket off and sits up, planting his feet on the carpet.

               “Nnngh…” Yeah. Probably his house. Probably on the floor in the center of his room. He’s probably going to go home, having completely stricken this exchange from his mind, and trip over it in his ironic and no doubt frantic hunt for the thing. … So he should probably get a head start on that.

               “Alright, well,” he says, narrowing his eyes down at his shoes on the floor. “I guess I’m. Going there, then.” He looks to Johnny for his impressions and finds the dude just… studying him. “… What?”

               His brows are furrowed at the fidgeting boy, and after a few seconds he glances around his room. At the TV, at his phone, and then finally back at Max. He speaks up.

               “Why don’t we just not go?”

               Max squints. “Huh?”

               Johnny’s base energy is finally starting to show, now he’s actually awake. He reaches for his phone. “Well, we already missed…” And he checks the time again, “All of first and second period. An’ most of third.” He puts his phone back and goes about trying to fix the extreme bedhead-plus-gel disaster of his hair. “By the time we get ready, get your crap, and get all the way up the hill t’ school, we’re gonna prob’ly miss all of third and most of fourth.”

               “Yeah, but…”

               “Plus, it’s Friday,” he interrupts, smirking. “Plus, it’s _First_ Friday. Let’s just not go!”

               Max, who had been silently listening to Johnny’s reasoning, lets his shoulders drop and rolls his eyes to avert his gaze, asking what must be asked. He is clearly tempted.

               “What’s First Friday?”

               Johnny simply stares back with his hands folded in front of his mouth for a long time. Max shifts awkwardly.

               “Okay,” he abruptly says, in a very final manner. He stands up, clapping his hands together. Just like that, he is as full of energy as he always is during the day. “We are _definitely_ not goin’ to school!” Max opens his mouth to protest, but Johnny doesn’t let him. “Brush your hair or teeth or food or whatever.”

               “Right now?” Max asks, turning in a circle to watch Johnny as he moves about the room, grabbing a questionably clean towel from the clutter on the floor and hair gel from atop his dresser. He raises his hands quizzically. “Can you _wait?_ What are we doing?”

               Johnny stops on a dime on his way to the open door and drops everything he’d just gathered, instead pacing across the room to Max and grabbing his face, smushing it. There’s that big ol’ hyena grin.

               “Maxwell Gangsta Puckett,” he firmly begins. “Pay attention.”

               “Okay…?”

               “What we are doing is you an’ me are taking the day off.” He jabs himself in the chest with his thumb, grin getting impossibly wider. “Johnny style.”

               Max winces. He is familiar with Johnny style, just like everyone who is familiar with Johnny is. The brute does everything in his life with a level of energy behind it that usually affords chaos or destruction or both. Every path is a warpath, and realistically, Max probably _shouldn’t_ be following him down this particular path on this particular day. But to be completely fair, he kind of signed up for it.

               Especially considering this guy is his boyfriend.

               “Okay. Great. That makes me nervous,” he replies. Johnny whirls, grabs his things, and fires out of his bedroom. Welp. Hopefully Max doesn’t miss anything important at school today.

              Or, y’know.

              Lose any limbs.

              [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahvSgFHzJIc)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: imagine, if you will, a silly morning montage set to loverboy’s working for the weekend. exactly two shots are dedicated to max adjusting his hat and eating a poptart. credits artistically move across the screen in your brain, all of which are mine and zack’s names ad nauseum
> 
> welcome to the fic! if you didn’t catch it, sometimes i’ve jammed songs into this thing in the form of music notes! give ‘em a listen if you like, but they’re not mandatory!
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (ANN: how meta is this? i just wanted to add that this fic was originally hosted on my tumblr, and the author's notes are copied directly from there. they've been edited for contextual clarity on AO3! i'm keeping the original "AN" tags though for the lols. that's just classic fanfic aesthetic. hashtag i don't own anything don't sue me
> 
> chapters go up from this monday until this friday! depending on your position in the timeline that may not mean anything! enjoy! again! from the future, that is. or the present, but the other one was in the pa--)


	2. Do Ya

              “Yeah, uh, sorry. I meant to call but I sorta fell asleep. To be fair, you were probably asleep too. … Sure okay but you literally texted me last night and said, ‘I M going 2 sleep son.’ It’s in my phone. Yeah, I know. I woke up late.”

              Worn, relical flip-phone to his ear, Max idly taps his feet on Johnny’s front steps. The boy himself shakes his backpack around as he hops in place a few feet further on, fiddling with the lapels of the dark gray jacket over his sleeveless shirt and waiting for Max to deliver his next line. The morning sun is creeping higher into the sky and the weather is pretty much perfect for being out in, which makes the inevitable mayhem that Johnny is going to rain down today that much more emphasized.

              “I actually… puked a ton, so I’m gonna hang out here on the couch. Come home later today. I wasn’t feeling good last night either.” He adjusts the brim of his baseball cap, staring uncomfortably up at the little clouds in the sky. “Yeah, no need to leave the store alone, really! The Jhonny’s don’t mind.”

              He turns his gaze downward and narrows his eyes when it lands on Johnny’s face. He slowly shakes his head. Johnny simply grins back, holding the straps of his backpack, not still for a moment. They both know how ready he is for this call to end so they can get the heck going- to… wherever it is they’re going. Smirking to himself, Max turns away. “But could you call the school and let them know I’m out sick?”

              About a minute of talking later, he clicks his phone shut.

              He wedges the half-charged thing back into his awkwardly small pocket (knowing full well how impossible it will be to get back out) and rises to his feet, spreading out his arms in a bland _ta-da._ “Aaand I’m free until dinner. That’s really all it takes for my dad. Didn’t think it’d be hard to get him to let me skip.” He pauses. His shoulders drop. “My god, I’m skipping.”

              “Oh, loosen up, Captain Clambum,” Johnny sneers with a dramatic roll of his eyes. He folds his arms. “You might be a mega-nerd but you haffta’ve skipped before!”

              “Yeah, I’ve _skipped,_ but to lay in my bed pretending to be sick with my DS, not to play _hooky…!_ ”

              Johnny barely hears. Shocking. He starts pacing down the sidewalk, and down the hill. “Now onto my folks. Casa De Johnny won’t be populated ‘til five, which means we havva good six hours to play with.” He nods to himself, doing mental math, and murmurs, “Should be enough time.”

              “Sh… _Should_ be?” Max knits his eyebrows together. He hurries to catch up. “Dang it, Johnny, what are we doing? What happens on… First Friday, or whatever you called it?”

              Johnny swings an arm roughly around Max’s shoulders as soon as he’s within range and tugs him close. “I dunno if you’ve noticed in yer short time here, Max, but despite being situated on two hills rather than a meagsly one, Mayview’s very small and sad like a band student, and verchully nothing ever happens.”

              “Right. Nothing.”

              “To make up for this depressing fact, th’ town collectively hosts a punch-ton of events on the first Friday of every month.” Max trips and almost falls over a recycling bin that he physically can’t avoid in Johnny’s grip. Just like his backpack later. “Everyone gets out an’ does crap. There’s music and block parties and free movies and junk. A perfect scenario for two broke middle schoolers.”

              A small smile appears on Max’s face. “Hey, alright. Sounds okay, actually.” And then it fades a little when he lowers his eyebrows. “I’m waiting for the inevitable catch.”

              “West Hill is where it’s notoriously poppin’, so that’s where we’re gonna notoriously pop in.”

              Max stops moving his feet, and Johnny continues on until he realizes he no longer has a Puckett on his arm. A good six feet later. He turns back toward Max, who’s stopped to stare out over the lake. Max looks to Johnny, and then back across the lake. He raises his arm to point to the opposite hill of Mayview, illuminated by the sun. To someone as uncommitted as Max, it is a distant mountain.

              “That West Hill?” He flatly asks. “The one way over there?”

              Johnny shrugs, blinking. “Yeah.”

              “So what’s that, like a fifty minute walk, or…?”

 

              It’s like a thirty five minute walk, actually, and they’re both pleasantly surprised.

              Almost twenty minutes in, Max is astonished by the fact that he’s never been down as far as the lake since he’s moved to Mayview. He walks down a narrow sidewalk on the side of a bridge- to his left is the windy road, and to his right is the expanse of the lake. He keeps his gaze on it the whole way down the bridge, with its tiny sailboats and motorboats sliding across the surface and its strange creatures swimming unnoticed below.

              “Been to the lake yet?”

              “Nah,” Max says, kicking a loose chip of pavement off the edge and sending it down toward the waters. “It’s pretty cool.”

              “You should see th’ beaches,” comes his response as Max tries to see if he can make out the ripples it created. “Lotsa big rocks to, uh… to do showoffy freakshow flips off of. _Woke up… late…_ ”

              Max finally turns toward Johnny walking beside him, and raises a brow. He is bowed over his phone, muttering under his breath as he speedily texts.

              “Mmmy B. Lettin’ the crew know what’s up. Should be study hall or somethin’ by now.” He goes back to muttering, and leans back as he finishes up. “ _… to West Hill… with the… BF. Report back later._ ”

              He clicks send and slips his phone into his backpack’s side pocket out of a school day’s habit. The two walk in silence for just a few more yards before Johnny’s phone buzzes. And then buzzes a few more times in rapid succession as his friends blow up his phone with responses. He grins over at Max. “Yeap. Study hall.”

              But Max is too busy repeating _BF_ in his head to pay much mind. He hooks his thumbs on his nigh-useless pants pockets and autopilots it onward as he begins to space out. _BF._ Those letters stand for _boy_ and _friend._

              … It’s a weird thing.

              It’s okay to say it’s weird, because it is. Max thinks it’s weird, his friends think it’s weird, Johnny’s friends probably think it’s weird, who knows what Johnny thinks, and the same question is likely on everybody’s minds.

              That question is how in the _world_ Max Puckett and Johnny Jhonny became boyfriends.

              The answer is Max doesn’t know. Through a series of ludicrous trials and tribulations starting the day after Max moved to Mayview, the two rivals had turned into something vaguely resembling friends. It was unexpected and strange, and when Johnny had eventually asked him out, it was completely out of the blue. He thought it might have been a joke.

              But something pushed him to say yes anyway. So he did. And he said yes when that same thing pushed him to accept Johnny’s invitation to walk with him to an Unrelated Corner Store after school one day, and come over to his house to play Xbox, and go on too many short-notice sleepovers to count, and come wreck mailboxes down near the edge of East Hill—actually Max declined that one but the point being.

              There’s something that keeps driving him to accept the hundreds of invites the boy gives him and to accept that he… at least sort of _likes_ this. It’s clear enough. But Max’s mind has a way of covering its bases. If any given thing has the potential to turn into a bad thing, he’ll be ready for it. Dating Johnny is no exception.

              As all this stands, it’s not a good thing or a bad thing since it’s not necessarily any better or worse than it never having happened. So it’s just a weird thing. And it’ll stay a weird thing until he gathers any evidence otherwise.

              Here’s an example of that base-covering. Right off the bat, this particular traffic sign is filed right into the “bad things” folder.

              Max’s cheek abruptly meets it just then, stopping him dead in his tracks and his train of thought dead on its tracks. He takes a step back and rubs his cheek before moving past it, grumbling in annoyance and pain. See, kids, this is why we don’t autopilot for the sake of narrative-hijacking monologue.

              “Pffft! Hahaha, _dang!_ Signs much?”

              Especially when it’s about dumb spiky-haired boys. Just not worth it.

              Anyway, it isn’t long before the pair reaches the end of the bridge, where the smell of pond scum is heavy in the air. Johnny watches as Max steps off the sidewalk of the wide road and into the tall grass. Into West Hill Mayview for the first time. (Or at least the West Hill _side_ of Mayview.) He crosses his arms and follows the hill with his eyes up to its peak.

              Johnny claps his hands on his shoulders from behind. “Unexplored territory, boi. You scared?”

              “So scared,” Max flatly replies. He scatters bugs as he paces in the grass, turning every so often to take in the typha, the nearby shores, and the dock not too far down the line.

              And a good forty feet toward the hill, just beyond a vacant, grassy lot, a dinky little diner called _Retraux._ Pretty clever name, Max thinks, as he studies its obvious attempts to appear like a 50’s diner. Seems like a stereotypical hangout spot.

              “So, where to first?” He asks. “You’re the First Friday guy. And the Made Me Walk Across Town guy.”

              “Well, up at the Mayview Mall theatre they’re showin’ old lame movies for the low price of free all day; right up your alley.” He points up to the north side of the hill, closer to its peak, where a modest building peeks out from the trees. The mall, he guesses. “DDR tournament in the arcade, I hear, and I’m sure on our journey up there’ll be plenty-uh block parties fer us to wreak havoc in.” He crouches down on the curb, pulling his backpack off his shoulders. “And we do have some money in case capitalism.”

              “Wreak havoc?” Max frowns deeply at him. “Johnny, I could get detention and grounded for this. I don’t want to get fined too.”

              “Do ya trust me, Max?” Johnny sighs, letting his shoulders droop and his head loll way back. He pulls a wad of dollar bills out of his backpack and flips through them. When Max doesn’t respond, he goes on. “ _Do ya?_ If I didn’t know howta do this I wouldn’t have took you. You’re not gonna get detention. Or grounded. Or found.”

              “Found?”

              “Past tense of fined.”

              “Nope.”

              Just then, as Johnny finishes counting up his half of their money reserves and putting it back next to his hairbrush in his backpack, Max notices something within. He folds his arms behind his back and leans closer, squinting. “Is that… a jar of honey in your backpack?”

              Johnny perks up at once. He thrusts his hand into the backpack and pulls it out to display it proudly. Now confirmed. Johnny literally did have a half-empty jar of honey in his in there. “Yup! It’s for pouring into people’s pockets and backpacks and stuff. If we run into anyone who’s bein’ difficult.”

              Max’s gaze hardens. He puts his hands on his hips and is half-tempted to tap his foot reproachfully. “Johnny, I can’t believe I have to ask this. Oh wait. Yes I can! Who are you planning on fighting today.”

              Johnny shrugs in defense, grinning, and replaces the honey. “ _Nobuddy!_ Just gotta be prepared, y’know?”

              “Johnny…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel it. There’s no way this venture isn’t going to have negative repercussions. Probably up to the legal level. They should have gone to school.

              “Mux,” he says with a small smirk, zipping up his backpack. He straightens up, meeting Max’s eye line. “Kid. Listen. I promise I ain’t gonna be doing any fighting today.”

              This catches Max’s attention. His hands drop to his sides and he raises an eyebrow, squinting even harder and studying Johnny very carefully. “… You _promise?_ ”

              “I promise. No brawling.”

              There is a long pause before Max loosens up a little, averting his gaze from Johnny’s _charming_ demeanor and adjusting the brim of his hat. “Fine.”

              In one hop, Johnny is on his feet, slinging his backpack on. “Now let’s get got going. There’s a lot of potential stuff to do today and you’re gonna do _all of it._ ” He turns dramatically on Max, deadly serious. “Consider it yer First First Friday Smorgasbord.”

              And so the two of them get walking again, finally headed up toward the actual Hill of West Hill. The sun is warm on Max’s back.

              “… How do you know the word smorgasbord?”

              “How d’you not?”

              “I mean, I do, I just said it, but—it’s a good word.”

              “I can do those, Max. I can do a good word.”

              “Found.”

              “Huh?”

   

              One literary hard cut scene transition later, Johnny and Max have started leaving behind the tiny, almost suburban farms to instead walk through something familiar: residential streets. And almost instantly, Max has begun to see the differences he expected of First Friday from the way Johnny had described it. The first expectation: Mayview streets not being completely desolate during the day. They’re all adults or kids too young for school, but a few people mill about. Not seeming to be doing anything immediately exciting, though they still seem a lot more excited than _zero_ people would seem.

              The second expectation: yard sales. Johnny didn’t say yard sales but for some reason Max expected yard sales and this is yard sales. A few per block, and his city-dwelling past has him peering into the contents of boxes and blankets as he passes. Lots of old toys and Green Santas and tacky lamps.

              “Why are there so many green Santa statues?”

              “C’mon, Mux, we barely have any dough,” No Patience Johnny says, tugging the contemplative Max’s sleeve as they walk along, eyes somewhere else that is far more interesting. “And anysides, stoopid, you could get a Green Santa _anywhere._ ”

              “But why? Why are they green?”

              [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Y-rfbzmgY)

              “Come _on,_ ” he repeats, hauling Max along toward a steep brick-and-grass alleyway. “’Cause I smell a block party real close!”

              Johnny’s nose leads them right through the alley and up onto another street. A wider one, with a sheer, grassy hill on the opposite side in lieu of more houses. The street appears to wrap right around to the next one up beyond the metal guardrail, where there does, in fact, seem to be quite a bit of activity. Party activity.

              From their vantage point below, he can already see- between a respectable amount of people- tables and chairs set up about the street, lined with communal snacks and beverages. Cruddy streamers are tied in arches between street lamps and street signs, and there is at least one lawn game up there. (Max picks out cornhole specifically. (Max’s mind is trained to pick out cornhole specifically, because it has a funny name.)) And finally, despite all odds, a hotdog cart. Not sure how a hotdog cart keeps business in a small town like Mayview, but there you go.

              “Them’s a party, Puckett,” Johnny proudly announces, pointing up at the street. “Onna block. Let’s crash this bash.” And he runs to clamber straight up the hill, not bothering to take the road around. Max jumps and hurries after him, having to race to keep up as Johnny quickly makes it up to the guardrail. He’s hopped over and wandered onto the street by the time Max makes it to the top.

              He swings over the guardrail and brushes his black t-shirt off, moving out into the scrubby crowd of the block party. A small crowd of teenage skaters loiter near a table, muttering to each other. Two young kids chase each other around with sticks and somewhere, faintly, a radio plays a spirited commercial. Being in the midst of all this really starts to strike a familiar chord with Max, and he can’t help but smile at it all. For a second, he expects Damien and Sam to be here.

              “Okay, yeah. This is cool,” Max admits. “We had block parties in Baxborough sometimes, but not every _month._ ”

              Johnny whirls on him, beaming. He paces back toward him and swings an arm around his shoulders, enough for Max’s knees to nearly buckle. “See? People get bored. I knew you’d like it. You may make yer living being a snarky little smarmerstorm cloud, but even you can’t not fondly remember your big city days. And it’s like I said: you can’t get much more city inna place like Mayview than with First Friday.”

              And they stand taking in the block party like that for a while, Max’s face softening into a furrowed-brow little smile as Johnny’s grip on his shoulders relaxes. But a while is not very long, and soon enough, that arm will have to come off to do something predictable.

              Johnny whips his hand off Max’s shoulder then, and predictably punches his palm with a shark-like grin. “Anyways. Like I said part two: onto wreaking havoc.”

              “Oh god.”

              After a quick visual sweep of the immediate area, he picks out a certain lawn game from about the goings-on, with a young kid trying and failing to land any bags. He points to it. “See that game over there with the board, Max? That game’s called doghouse.”

              “Uh wrong. That game is called cornhole.”

              “Cornhole’s cornhole is about to get filled with like twenty nine free hotdogs,” he replies, and breaks into a brisk walk toward the nearby hotdog cart. Max stands still for all of three seconds before he realizes this is Johnny and there’s a zero percent chance he’s kidding, at which point he launches after him.

              It’s his turn to tug on sleeves, which he does in vain as his partner keeps moving. “Okay, Johnny, wait. Why can’t we instead just like, eat the twenty nine free hotdogs, and relish in the fact that we beat the system?”

              “’Cause it’d be funny!” Johnny cackles, coming hazardously close to the vicinity of the presently unmanned cart. “You go to throw a thing in the thing an’ it just goes—”

              He stops short. He quits walking altogether and Max conks into his back. He’s quick to realize that the smile has been completely wiped from Johnny’s face and replaced with a frown. A _glower_. His jaw is tight and his eyebrows are knitted together, and Max is familiar with this face. It usually precedes school brawls. Or math tests.

              “What? Was it the pun?”

              Johnny doesn’t reply. His hard gaze is locked on a point several yards away from them, and Max follows. He can’t quite pick out anything out of the ordinary until he notices a few kids specifically, walking past the hotdog stand. Kids their age. Kids that should probably be in school around this time.

              Fellow skippers, Max thinks, and maybe it’s because he knows he and Johnny have been wearing the same clothes since yesterday, (Johnny has no excuse but he makes it work.) but they seem to have prepared for this a little better than they had. Or, at least, they naturally dress fancier. Two blonds, a boy and a girl, and a brunet (with hair that sort of reminds him of Isaac’s) wearing a green suit. … Yeah, a suit. The dude’s got a tie and everything. Max wonders how warm he must be in it, briefly noting how Johnny’d elected to wear a dark jacket today.

              But however they’re dressed, Johnny does not like it. Now, Johnny doesn’t like a lot of things, but few things dissuade him from wreaking havoc like he happily would have a few seconds ago. His brow twitches. Max is sure he’s grinding his teeth.

              “Uh, Johnny?” He says quietly, trying to keep the concern down. He softly taps his arm with his knuckles. “Why do you seem… marginally threatened…?”

              “’Cademy.”

              “Huh?”

              “Mayview Academy,” he replies, louder and clearer and no less pre-brawl. The three kids are heading their way down the street. The blonde girl wheels a bike beside her, sticking up her nose as she talks to the boys.

              Johnny jams his hands in his jacket pockets. He shoots a glare at Max, at which point he seems to remember he’s there at all. The brawl seems to leave his expression a bit then, but the anger is still there. “… I know these fools. They’re, uh… bullies at the academy.”

              “But… but they _go_ to an _academy!_ They can’t be bullies, they’re academics!” He feverishly whispers to Johnny, looking anywhere but at the group as they come closer into range. “They’re bully-ees!”

              “Max, please, there’s bullies everywhere,” Johnny sighs like he’s naïve. “Even at an academy. Unforchintly, they’re still smart like the rest of those nerds. Be cool and stay behind me, shrimp.”

              Max is about to ask wherefore, but Johnny seems to know a little better than him. And much like someone reading a story who wasn’t quite up to speed yet, he seems to work out just then that a conflict was always bound to occur.

              “Hey, East Hill.”

              The boys look in unison to the voice, and nobody involved is surprised to see that it’s the Mayview Academy kids. The girl kicks her bike’s kickstand down with a sigh and the blond boy, with his salmon shorts and his sweater wrapped around his shoulders, folds his arms and sneers. Max immediately begins to understand a little bit better.

              He watches him look Johnny up and down like he’s a wet rat. “No gang today?”

              “Nope,” says Johnny curtly. He stands a little taller, showily popping the collar of his gray jacket. “Just this one. He’s new to First Friday, so try and be curdeeus.”

              “Wow,” the blonde girl boredly chips in, raising her eyebrows. “I’m not even reading and I know you spelled courteous wrong.”

              Max notices the bruises on the side of her jaw when she speaks. Out of place for the kind of snobby archetype they all seem to fit into. Could she really fight like Johnny does? … Has she fought Johnny?

              “That’s funny,” the boy says. With a clearly-showing-off flair, he checks the time on the fancy watch on his wrist. “The three of us were just heading out from a private party with our membership at a private pool to enjoy some of what First Friday has to offer!” He pauses, and then leans toward Johnny with a condescending smile. But not too close, Max notices. He seems to be aware of who he’s dealing with. “Which means you should probably go back home.”

              Johnny takes a few solid steps toward him, which wipes the smirk off the blond boy’s face. He seems to tense up. The boy in the suit flinches.

              But Johnny just says, “Talk big, Academy, but ya realize you’re on my crew’s West Hill turf, right?”

              “Oh, really? You haven’t marked your territory in a while.” The girl murmurs.

              But though the brunet laughs, the blond boy is too busy to pay any attention to her joke. Busy squinting at Johnny with a mystified expression, and then glancing over at Max, and then back at Johnny with dawning comprehension. Max doesn’t know what kind of conclusion he’s just come to, but he’s not a fan, because his smirk returns. He was clearly afraid of Johnny a second ago, but now he’s brimming with confidence. He nudges the girl (who scowls at him) out of the way and toward Max.

              “Please,” he grins. “I’m rich. It’s all my turf.”

              “What about when I punch you in your face and you run away?” Johnny dryly asks.

              “… That’s different.”

              Raising a brow, Max promptly asks, “Why?”

              “Because I’m rich,” he responds, simple as anything. “Besides, you don’t have it in you to fight me today.” And when Johnny’s mouth opens to immediately bite back at that, he goes on, “I mean, aren’t you two skipping school today? Seems like a bit of a risk to start picking fights, East Hill. Especially when you’re _showing off._ ”

              “Showing—what the heck is _that supposed—_ ”

              “You’re one to talk,” Max scoffs, hardly noticing Johnny getting worked up beside him when he spots the chance to be petty. He gestures widely at the brunet spiky-haired kid. “This dude’s still wearing his uniform!”

              The boy blinks, startled by having the attention suddenly turned on him. He scowls, indignant. “I- I mean, I’m going _back!_ ” He frowns at the asphalt. “I just got a doctor’s note—debate team meets after school on Fridays, so…!”

              The blond pops into Max’s field of view, interrupting and tagging out his stammering colleague. “He’s the team captain,” he explains. Max tastes the irony of someone so clearly unconfident being the captain of a debate team. It’s delicious.

              “Our school wins every time we debate because we’re extremely talented and better than most people.” He smiles. This guy is a walking friggin’ trope and he seems like he enjoys it. “Are _you_ debate team captain back at MMS, buddy?”

              “Oh, no. I don’t bother arguing about things that have no meaning.” He also isn’t sure his school has a debate team.

              And with perfect, flawless timing, Max’s phone goes off in his pocket, proudly caroling out his ringtone. _BLAAAM! Busta cap in that sucka! Pull out all my knives an’ put some holes in that sucka!_ He gives a broad sweep of his arm to the three of them and flatly concludes, “Observe.”

              Then he goes about digging in his pocket for his phone to answer as it continues in its verse. And by digging, he means scraping in vain at the hem, trying to fit his fingers in. Why are these stupid pockets so snug.

              The boy with the sweater tied around his neck turns his attention back to Johnny with a roll of his eyes. Johnny stands as tall as he can without physically getting onto his tip-toes, and meets his stare. “Like I said, you two should leave. You’ll block out my sun. I’m sure you guys have like… cornhole over there, anyway.”

              “You guys have cornhole.”

              “Ours is Olympic level cornhole.”

              Max is having a really hard time with this, especially because every time he hears his ringtone, it’s funny at first, and then quickly becomes exponentially annoying. The girl watches, deadpan, as he makes a quiet spectacle of himself, tuning out the trite nonsense going on beside them.

              “That’s not true.”

              “It is too. Want me to prove it?”

              His fingers finally find a grip on the phone within and he holds it tight. Now the only problem is getting the thing out. If there’s any speculation, this problem does happen every time he wears these pants. In this moment he doesn’t know why he owns them, because seriously, he’s pulling as _hard as he…_

              “Want me to prove a hackey sack down your—”

              Max’s hand springs free suddenly, phone and all, with the full force of that last tug backing it. His closed fist quickly swings out before he can even think about slowing it, and it slams hard against something. _God_ he’s glad that it was stopped, or else he probably would have ended up punching that girl standing right in front of him.

              …

              Wait.

              The dull pack of Max’s fist making contact with the girl’s nose has frozen everything, and all eyes in the group, as well as several from the surrounding block party, are turned in his direction. All is silent apart from Max’s ringtone. Johnny’s eyebrows are raised high. The girl has taken a step back, clutching her nose and squeezing her eyes shut tight as Max stands unmoving, jaw agape. The brunet throws his arms up, looking at him hatefully.

              “Dude!”

              “ _OW,_ ” the girl loudly grunts through gritted teeth. Tears well in her eyes, but she looks a lot more annoyed than genuinely pained. That’s what a whack to the nose will do to you.

              “Oh. Oh god. Oh god, sorry,” Max finally stammers out, horrified. The blond boy is staring at him, mouth open, _fuming._ His hands shakily close into fists. All that trope has left his eyes.

              “Did you just hit my sister?” He manages, a mixture of fury and shock. Max raises his hands in a placating manner, unsure how to handle this situation. His sister. Good. Great.

              “I didn’t mean to, man, I—”

              “You just _hit my SISTER!_ ” He roars, charging at Max. Max only gets to stumble a couple steps away from the retributive punch that’s inevitably coming for his face before Johnny swoops in, wedging himself between Max and the Academy boy with his arms spread out wide. Protective.

              The boy halts inches from Johnny’s face, loathing in his eyes as they stare at each other. Once again, he understands who he’s dealing with. From behind Johnny, Max holds his breath. He doesn’t want to be part of a brawl. He _really_ doesn’t want to be part of a brawl. Silence is upon the group once more (apart from Max’s ringtone) until the girl speaks up, wiping the involuntary tears from her eyes and glaring at her brother.

              “It’s _fine,_ you idiot. He hits like cooked pasta.”

              But the boy doesn’t take his eyes off Johnny. He seems to be calculating whether or not he wants to push his luck. Max gets it. Somehow, he seems to know that Johnny swore off fighting for today. But neither he nor Max are completely sure the bruiser isn’t about to start throwing punches anyway.

              “Let’s just go _do_ something,” she presses on, folding her arms. “Dad’s coming home today.”

              And that is what it takes to finally snap Academy out of it. He blinks, breaks eye contact with Johnny and slowly moves back, glaring away and straightening his polo shirt. Max exhales.

              He starts walking back down the street, and his sister and friend take the cue to follow him. The girl nudges her kickstand up and wheels after her brother, but not before shooting Max a vaguely unimpressed look. Johnny relaxes slightly, glowering at them from under his eyebrows as they leave.

              “You two,” the boy says, looking back and tightening the stupid sweater on his shoulders, “Should go _home_ , East Hill. Try not to make West Hill any more filthy than you already have on your way out.”

              “S-See you never, peasants,” the brunet sneers.

              “Shut it,” Academy snaps.

              And so they’re gone, and the stares of the block party around Johnny and Max slowly recede as the strange 12-year-old drama comes to an end. Max’s knees grow weak, and he slowly sinks to the ground, a quiet, drawn out groan escaping his throat as he does. It’s at this point that Johnny turns to face him, the glare on his face washing away into his trademarked massive grin. His amber eyes are glowing with pride. Max looks away from them to stare at his ringing phone. The preview screen tells him how disappointingly low his battery is.

              “Kid,” Johnny whispers. “That was awesome.”

              Max venomously shakes his head. _No. No it wasn’t._ He sighs inwardly and clears his throat, finally flipping his phone open and resting his forehead on his knees.

              “Hello? Uh. Yeah. Hi, Dad. … No, no, just… laying on the couch. You know. As I have been. Feeling okay. I was uh, taking a nap. Don’t worry ‘bout it. … Mm. Hey, my phone’s dying, so I’m gonna go. Yeah, I will. Okay. Bye.”

              And he flips it closed and glares hollowly at his lap. He’s so glad he punched a girl in the face for that phone call. They should have gone to school. He pictures his backpack in the middle of his room.

              As Johnny starts walking toward the hotdog cart, Max grabs his ankle and trips him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: okay, i didn’t tell you but first friday has a very small and simple cast with few characters beyond max and johnny, but those who are are original characters. i try my best to make them fit into the paranatural universe! that being said, if you’re here for bully magnet, you’re gonna get a surplus of it.


	3. Dancing With Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: i hope you folks are ready for this one. i told you it would be ridiculous and welcome to ridiculity

               Johnny taps his knuckles against Max’s shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. “How’d it feel, punchin’ that academic?”

               “It wasn’t. On purpose.”

               The two of them are walking uphill yet again in their trek toward the mall, as Max decided immediately after their confrontation to get them out of the block party filled with young kids and frail elderlies. In the efforts to keep his mind off of that painful experience, Max starts to really take in the differences between the two hills of this town. The gardens and ornaments in front of people’s houses, the tiny diners and tiny pharmacies, the street signs, they all seem so clean and so classy. At least in comparison to the hill he lives on. He feels like a bit of an outsider. His phone beeps.

               “Kid, c’mon, she’s a _jerk,_ ” Johnny insists, furrowing his brow. “That kinda person can make smaller, wimpier girls cry on the _daily_ with her brain alone, and I guarantee ya she does.” He roughly pats Max on the back. It stings. “You did a good thing t’day.”

               “No,” Max says, shaking his head. His eyes are wide. He remembers how close he was to getting decked. “Nope. No. I can’t believe I’m still standing. God, if…”

               His hands twitch as if the very thought he’s having angers him. “If someone even— _touched_ Zoey, I’d be in juvie right now.”

               “Whyzat?”

               He looks calmly back to Johnny. “Y’know, because of murder stuff.”

               “Ohh.” Johnny smiles softly. “Yeah, same. Like, with my crew. We could be juvie bros.”

               Max opens his mouth, almost to say something, but doesn’t. Weird thing. His phone beeps again. They walk quietly for a while, Johnny kicking at a pine cone until it rebounds off a trash can and bounces across the road. Eventually, Max speaks up again, glancing over.

               “… Think they’re gonna be a problem?”

               Johnny snorts. “What, Academy? Nahhh. They’re nothin’. They always try to start stuff when we come ‘round and all it takes is a good  _whack_ an’ they remember who’s the boss. Me. Me’s the boss.”

               He stretches his arms out. “Nah, we’ll be good. ‘Specially after you slugged onnuvem, slugger. An’ you have _me_ not fightin’ today.”

               “Oh my _god._ ”

               Just then, he’s interrupted by one final noise from the phone in his hand- his company’s jingle signing his ancient battery off from life. He frowns as he watches his preview screen go black. It’s an odd feeling to suddenly be holding something of no worth. “Feh. Hope the club doesn’t end up needing me. My phone just died.”

               “Well, why’re you still holding it? Gonna punch someone else?”

               “ _STOP,_ ” he barks. Johnny cackles. “And I’m just sick of keeping it in my pockets, they suck.”

               “Well, givvit here,” Johnny says, sniggering. “Mine’re bigger.”

               Within a second and without a word, Max is passing his phone over, happy to be rid of the thing. He’s cross with it right now. Johnny takes it and sticks it in his jacket’s large pockets. They pass under the shade of a maple tree and by the sound of [classic rock music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNjrBUzXDJk) from within someone’s open screen door.

               “I’m gettin’ hungry,” Max comments.

               “No worries. Gonna be free food at the next block party we hit, I bet you your food.”

               “We’re not _getting_ food at the next block party we lightly tap.”

               “Eh? Why?”

               “You’re going to put it all in lawn games. Or start a food fight.”

               Johnny scoffs, feigning offense. “Maximus! Do I seem like the kind of person who would thing such a do? … Oh, what? Yer not gonna talk t’ me now?”

 

               And so, the journey up the hill is a lot less like a quest and a lot more like a tour. As the sun hovers over their heads, the pair continue to climb, Johnny weaving them in and out of streets and across micro-parks and playgrounds as they search for block parties to “make a rumpus in.” Between cardboard boxes of free VHS’s and old toys on steps and curbs, and between families socializing from across the gaps between their porches and the little yard sales that line the way, they do end up finding more. Three more, and Max adamantly refuses at each of them to let Johnny near any food on the tables there.

               Johnny cockily reminds him at two that the ways he could wreak havoc are technically limitless, and that keeping him from refreshments won’t stop him. Max dares him to try both times, and both times, Johnny doesn’t. He just acts like he’s going to, really hard, until Max pitches a fit about getting kicked out of town. There’s a lot of Johnny playing way too intense (by his own rules) in lawn games and in hopscotch, and a lot of Max almost playing at _all_ until he notices the perpetual skater teens that linger around these block parties (why are there skaters at all of them?) and remembers that he’s too cool for games like these. He elects to stand back and watch Johnny make a fool of himself, and he gets enough enjoyment out of doing that anyway. At one point, he ends up with Johnny’s backpack on his shoulders. He forgets at a good six or seven instances, for increasingly longer amounts of time, that today is both a school day and not in the middle of summer. It’s a bizarre feeling every time he remembers.

               Eventually, though, after Johnny gets too rowdy in his efforts to wrestle with the neighborhood dogs at block party C, Max clears them out, and a few minutes later, they’re cutting across a sewer gulley, up a hill, and into a parking lot. The sun is finally shifting its weight toward the western sky.

               “I gotta say, I’m a lil’ disappointed,” Johnny says as Max slows to take in Mayview Mall. It is by no means a very big mall. He doesn’t even think that the building it’s situated in was even meant to _be_ a mall. It is too straightforward, too stock, not as deliberately flashy as the malls he used to visit. But it’s certainly Mayview, so it feels just the way it should feel. Two young girls wait for their father to get out of the car already so they can head in. Even on a Friday afternoon, the parking lot doesn’t seem particularly populated.

               “Why?” Max replies, quirking an eyebrow.

               “We’re already at the mall, where everything costs notoriously less than free. Think of all that free snackage we passed up.”

               “I told you already that the fact that pretzels don’t stain underwear is not a legitimate reason for me to enable you.”

               “I told _you,_ Max, there’re _many ways_ to wreak havoc!” He says, throwing his arms up. Max takes the lead in walking across the parking lot. Johnny picks his nose. “Fine. Less get some lunch in us at food court an’ then I’ll show you how to exploit the machines at the arcade. … Uh, around the DDR tourney. Unless you want in on that.”

               “I’m not much of a dancer.”

               They head into the building and down the great hall toward the centre of the mall, past the off-white, only slightly chipping paint of the walls and the meager populations within the shops. The centre is a wide open circle with a high glass ceiling, being the only part of the mall that looks like it had been noticeably renovated in recent years.

               In the very middle is a large fountain, bubbling constantly. Probably to double as a quaint sort of bench, (it must: there are soft drink cups and trays lying around the circumference) the rim is wide, almost the width of a sidewalk. Almost exactly the width of a sidewalk.

               The fountain, after a gap, is surrounded by a scattered ring of tables and chairs. A few fast food vendors line the walls; the centre of the mall doubles as the food court. Max can hear the sound of birds tweeting from high up in the rafters, something he’s much more used to hearing in the likes of home improvement store warehouses.

               It isn’t long after they’ve entered that the two are splitting up their money and heading to a burger vendor and a pizza vendor respectively, hunger panging at both their stomachs after Max’s forced fasting. In a few minutes, they meet back up at a small table near the fountain and are swift to start eating.

               “Havin’ a good time, Puckett?” Johnny asks. He leans his chair onto two legs and plants his feet on the table.

               “Yuh,” Max manages without opening his mouth full of pizza. He clears the passageway and goes on, “I keep getting flashes of panic whenever I remember we’re supposed to be in school right now, but yeah.”

               “Ma-a-an, you gotta forget about school. That’s the whole point of skipping.”

                “I’m trying to,” he says. And then, after some consideration, “Starting to.”

               Johnny grins on back. Just then, the song over the loudspeakers ends and the new one starts. Both boys perk up immediately, recognizing it on the first two notes.

               [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMEdQASCylw)

               “’Ey, I know this song,” Johnny murmurs, looking up to the speakers.

               “Me too,” Max says. He absentmindedly taps his foot. _When I’m with you, baby, I go out of my head…_ “It’s by Depeche Mode. I think.”

               “How’djoo know?” Johnny asks, bits of burger falling from his maw. Max averts his gaze, _ech-_ ing. “Yer twelve.”

               “You’re twelve,” Max shoots back. (It was supposed to be a hollow comeback, but he forgot that it’s true.) “This was the kind of music my—my parents listened to when I was growing up. And as a kid under ten, you tend to listen to whatever the heck you can hear.”

               Johnny nods in agreement. “Yup. Same here. Many-uh childhood rumble was soundtracked by lots of 80’s crap. I don’t think I’d listen to this stuff if my folks didn’t play it all th’ time.”

               Max isn’t even a little surprised that Johnny was already fighting less than ten. He recalls the afternoons he’d spend playing, ducking in and out of the garage with Zoey, with music like this blasting over the sound of a welding torch and sparks flying. He shakes his head. “I can’t even be sure if all of those songs are actually good, but it’s almost like… you’re required to love them, because…”

               “Because ya grew up with them,” Johnny finishes, not missing a beat.

               “Yeah,” Max simply agrees, and they smile softly across at each other for a few moments. Soon, Max coughs a little in the relative silence and goes back to eating. He shifts the straps of Johnny’s backpack, having never bothered to take it off. But with his head lowered, he can feel the gaze on his head.

               “Yo nerrrrd, you an’ me should go dance.”

               Max inhales sharply, almost choking on his pizza. He coughs roughly a few more times and then whips his head up to look at Johnny, stunned. The boy’s smirking. He was… joking, right?

               “The DDR tournament is probably pretty packed,” he drones once he’s swiftly recovered, trying to rationalize the request.

               “No problem,” Johnny shrugs. “We do it right here. DIY.”

               “That’s funny.”

               “What?” He snorts. He throws his arms up. His chair clanks back onto four legs. He furrows his eyebrows at Max, but his grin is still there. “You said you’re not a dancer, it’s time to fix that. We can _fix_ you. Plus, it’s a great honor to be see’d with me at all. Getting seen dancing near me is about as good as you’ll get on your honor scale.”

               “Nobody else is dancing,” Max says with a vague gesture around, resting his cheek on his fist. People mill about the food court and sit at the tables there; little old ladies and punk teens and hipster-esque young adults and parents with strollers, but none of them at the moment appear to be keen on dancing to faint 80’s music over a mall’s loudspeakers.

               “Who gives a care?” Johnny replies, folding his arms across his chest. The crap-eating grin is growing on his face. What he’s saying starts seeming less sincere. “We can start a fad if it makes ya feel better. You’re gonna have to learn that takin’ audience into account is just a damper on fun.”

               Max rolls his eyes. It’s really hard to tell whether or not he’s being picked on. “Nooo way, Jhonny. I do not want to dance in a mall food court. Or at all. I don’t want to dance, is what I’m saying.”

               “Consider this,” Johnny clasps his hands together and says like he’s explaining a mathematical equation. “I’m _cool._ You’ll be dancing with  _me._ ”

               “Dance with yourself,” Max says with finality, pointedly turning his head away and smirking. As if to end the conversation, he takes a far-too-big bite out of his pizza. In the corner of his eye, though, he can see Johnny’s smile change.

               It changes- very _slowly_ \- into something more subdued, more to himself. His eyebrows lower. He props his chin up on his hand and peers around the food court and down the wings of the mall, like he’s vaguely mapping it out. This gets Max’s attention back on him. That’s dangerous.

               Before he can finish chewing to begin dissuading Johnny from a number of countless things he believes he could be thinking of doing, the boy slaps his palms down onto the table and pushes his chair out. He stands up and Max braces himself.

               “I gotta poo,” he says, candid and cheerful.

               Oh. Well. That’s fine, Max guesses. “More information than I ever wanted.”

               After a moment of consideration, he starts taking his jacket off. “Actually, here, Mux. Watch my jacket.”

               He slings the jacket over the back of his chair and at that, away he walks with a bounce in his step. There are a lot of moments when Max notices just how much energy is crackling inside him, and this is one of them- as he goes to answer nature’s call, nonetheless. He shakes his head and grins. But then…

               “Wait, why do I need to watch your jacket?”

               Johnny turns and calls over his shoulder, “Cause yer phone’s in there; I might fall in!”

               “WAY MORE INFORMATION THAN I EVER WANTED.”

               And he’s finally alone to breathe for the first time since he went to Johnny’s last night, but as he watches him go, something grows a little heavier inside him. Probably the pizza. Most likely the pizza. He sighs, but he keeps the grin on his face anyway.

               … Come on. He had to have been joking about the whole dancing thing.

              Look, Johnny is almost entirely genuine in all of the things he does, but whenever he does… particularly affectionate things, there’s almost what looks to Max like an air of hyperbole across them. It’s there whenever he says the BF word, and it was there when he asked Max out for the first time.

              Max doesn’t doubt that Johnny likes him, because if he didn’t, he certainly wouldn’t be skipping school with him and dragging him around rather than giving him wedgies and extorting pocket change. There is a distinct line. Johnny _like-liking_ him, he’s a little fuzzier on.

              Max is fine with Johnny as a boyfriend. But he really could be fine with Johnny as a friend-friend, too, if that’s how he feels. It would just be great to know for _sure_ if the boyfriend… _things_ he does are genuine. Which is why this all is filed under “weird things,” and why he figures Johnny was joking just now.

              As said, his mind covers its bases.

              And so as he paces toward the nearest trash can with his garbage, killing time before the boy comes back, (because he’s starting to feel a little bit marooned) the song has ended and he notices that there are quite a few seconds of silence. A _strange_ amount of silence; more than there typically are between songs in malls.

              [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVdiowoKzTE)

              Soon enough, though, playing a little louder than the last, a very familiar beat kicks up over the speakers. He can’t quite put a finger on it, until… they bring in the guitar. And that’s when he can’t help but instinctively bob his head a little. Yep, he knows this one too. Because about five years ago for months straight, his dad would _never stop listening to it._ It’s a classic nonetheless and oh god Johnny.

              Max’s jaw drops open the moment he turns his head and sees his freaking boyfriend. Standing atop the wide brim of the fountain in the center of the food court, facing the water. Holding his hairbrush. Tapping his heel unreservedly to the beat of the song. What. The heck. Is this guy. Doing.

              As soon as the singing starts, to his horror, Johnny turns his head, a huge grin on his face and a ruthless fire in his eyes, raises the brush to his mouth like a microphone and starts flawlessly mouthing along to the words of the song. Oh god. Oh Max’s god.

_On the floors of Tokyo-o. Or down in London town to go-go._

_With the record selection, and the mirror’s reflection, I’m dancing with myself._

              He whips around to face the whole of the food court on the second line and begins moving his whole body to the music as he lip-syncs. Heat rises in Max’s cheeks and by all logic he should just run right now- run home and never come back- but he can’t. He is too shocked to move. He must watch.

              And so must _they._ Other mall patrons have stopped what they’re doing to stare at this freakish red-headed kid dancing on the edge of the fountain. Max slowly pulls his hat down to hide his equally red face as the shock leaves him to be replaced by mortification. This cannot be happening.

              This is Johnny’s vindication for refusing to take his bait earlier. If he wants to make a scene, he’ll make one. And he’ll make Max watch. He raises his arm and points directly at Max as soon as he makes his sad attempt to hide himself. _Well, I wait so long for my love vibration…_

              As intimidatingly as he can currently manage, Max motions for Johnny to get the _heck_ down from the fountain. Now. Johnny shakes his head in response, grinning devilishly wider. Nope. _And I’m dancing with myself!_

              The chorus hits and he throws the whole of himself into dancing, still miraculously on-point with his lip-syncing. _Dancing with myself! O-oh, dancing with myse-elf!_

              People around him are laughing and talking in disbelief amongst themselves as they watch this utter spectacle of a human being, who, by the way, Max thinks is an _awful dancer._ And this is intentionally obnoxious awfulness on a pedestal. Okay, that one was part of the Single Ladies dance. That was the shuffle. That- wh– Max doesn’t know what that one was.

_If I looked all over the world, and there’s every type of girl…_

              Max has to physically hold back from clawing at his face. He’s doing the whole song. There’s no way he’s not. He starts considering a list of ways to remove him from the premises without affiliating himself with the nut. But beside him- and he has to look twice- he catches a woman drumming her hands against her baby’s stroller and tapping her foot, smiling up at Johnny like she knows he’s the biggest fool on Earth.

              While the song rolls into the second chorus, he looks between the woman and Johnny in mystification. Johnny doesn’t seem to notice, but then, he’s not noticing much. It looks like he’s having fun up there. Either dancing or humiliating his boyfriend.

              His boyfriend blanks on ideas to get him down. Maybe it’s because he actively tells himself to care less while he watches him jump around like an idiot, and maybe it’s because he realizes the woman was not the only one who caught the beat.

              After the second chorus comes the guitar solo, and yes, if there was any doubt, Johnny does that too. His brush becomes the headstock for his air guitar and he totally shreds. And a few yards away, a group of hipsters near the edge of the ring of tables is dancing, and eyes are on them, too. The sounds of several people clapping from around the court reverb, a few teens are tapping along, and soon it’s not just them. Max is dumbfounded. This kind of loonery only happens in movies and shows, and he’s seeing it with his own eyes.

              “What is this town…?” He mutters to no one in particular, a bewildered smile on his face.

              The guitar solo is up, Johnny is lip-syncing again, and looking at Max again. He has been a lot, but this time he shoots him a _look._ An expectant look, and Max realizes he is not only one of the few people not dancing, but that he’s also standing completely still. He shrugs a little in reply. Johnny rolls his eyes.

              But he doesn’t seem annoyed for long, because once the instrumentals pause for this line to hit: _If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance…_

              And Johnny strikes the most dramatic stage pose, dipping himself _way_ back with the mic-brush as if he’s singing at the heavens, it’s what finally gets a bark of laughter out of Max. He can’t help it. Johnny’s paying close enough attention in the middle of this straining stance to notice that, and when he pops back up, he’s grinning in excitement. _And I’ll be dancing with myself! O-oh!_

              He’s showing off now, (well, he always had been) strutting down his narrow stage in a cocky manner, and he won’t stop looking over here at Max. Literally, he’s _only_ looking over here, and not looking where he’s going at all.

              And they’re both so busy sniggering at one another through the music and impromptu dancing and merriment that neither see the discarded food wrapper on the fountain’s rim that Johnny was genre-destined to step on.

              … Boy does he step on it.

              The paper he’d thought be solid concrete slips out from under Johnny’s foot and with an undignified yelp, the only sound he’s made in the past few minutes, he plunges into the fountain.

              Max- and a few others, surely- gasp and cringe. Yeah, that kid is 100% in the drink. Johnny splashes and flails in the shallow water, hectically trying to find his bearings and the surface. He springs up with a stunned expression on his face and shakes his head, spraying water everywhere. Max stares as he regains his relative composure. He has no idea what he’s going to do next.

              But Johnny, of course, does: the grin clicks right back onto his face and in one fell swoop, he vaults himself over the rim of the fountain, sliding out into the court in a trail of water and coming to a halt inches from Max. Then he flings his brush skidding across the floor. And as if nothing had happened, resumes dancing with fervor, just in time for the song’s denouement.

              And Max stares around, with slumped shoulders, at the practical flash mob he’s found himself in the middle of. They all seem so happy to be moving. It’s sickening. Okay, it’s not. But he’s having a hard time getting his head around it.

              Why did they all decide to dance? Is it because they pitied the bizarre child dancing with himself up on a fountain? Because they all secretly desired to be part of a disorganized dance number one day? Or is Mayview just really that weird?

              Whatever the answer, when he looks back at the dripping wet Johnny and sees that stupid, stupid grin on his face, it’s clear that this is a battle he’s lost. Genuinely! His reasoning not to dance was that nobody else was. He’s out of reason. With a sigh, trying to downplay his smile, he starts tapping his foot and nodding his head. About the closest thing to a dance Johnny will get out of him.

              Johnny laughs in victory nonetheless, and as celebration, he accidentally slips in his own puddle of water and crashes onto his butt. Max pinches the bridge of his nose until the dazed Johnny suddenly lets out a piercing, exhilarated _whoop,_ at which point he scrambles to shut him up.

 

              They never did get to the theatre. Or the arcade.

              “Can’t believe they kicked us out,” Johnny murmurs, turning a little.

              “You _can’t?_ ” Max squawks. He sits on a wooden bench a foot or so away from a large grate in the ground, hot air billowing out from… wherever. Johnny stands on top of it with his arms spread out wide and hair an awkward mix of soaked and gelled, turning in circles every so often in an effort to dry himself off.

              “I brung them the power of music or whatever,” he says with a subtle shrug. He glances across the parking lot to the doors of the mall. “Where’s th’ gratitude?”

              Max rests his cheek in the palm of his hand, lightly smiling. Johnny’s sleeveless shirt is clinging to him. He is a ridiculous, sodden boy. Max regards the freckles on his shoulders as he looks away. “Alright, Johnny Idol, you _did_ climb on the fountain and then track water all over the food court…”

              Johnny _pffts_ in reply. No big deal. He notices his damp socks make a squishing sound every time he takes a step, and goes on to spend half a minute producing the sound.

              “I need to know something,” Max speaks up. “How did you prepare that so quickly? You couldn’t have known they’d play that.”

              Johnny turns his head to shoot Max a proud, cheeky grin. “I could’ve if I quick busted into th’ office and changed the playlist.”

              “Oh.” Should have guessed. A flat expression overtakes Max’s face. “… Do you think maybe getting kicked out had a little to do with that?”

              “No way, I was discreet as heck.”

              Johnny Jhonny. Discreet.

              Johnny must recognize what the quirk of Max’s brow means just then, because he pulls a face and turns back around at once. In this moment, the same moment a hawk flies overhead and Johnny starts jumping up and down in an attempt to dry faster, Max has completely forgotten about school. About the backpack he’s going to trip over later, about the work he’ll miss, about getting caught. All he knows right now is that he’s glad to be here.

              (If they’d played by the rules, they’d be getting dismissed from school right now.)

              “You’re a maniac. I cannot believe you fell in,” he says with a quiet scoff. His smile grows. “On top of _doing that at ALL,_ you fell in.”

               “Heheh, right? All worth it fer the look on your face, though,” Johnny laughs. “I thought I might fall in, thas why I left my jacket at the table.”

               And now we pause.

               Max takes his eyes off Johnny and slowly straightens up, sitting very still.

               “Gotta think ahead, Max.”

               He is like this for several seconds before he steadily stands up from the bench and starts walking very stiffly back across the parking lot. It takes Johnny a moment or two to see that he’s gone.

               “… Puckett?” He cocks his head and walks after him. “Where you goin’?”

               Max does not reply to him, but he’s biting his lip and staring straight ahead and Johnny can surely almost hear the nervous _hmmmm_ inside his head. He’s heading for the mall doors. It has to click quickly enough.

               “Ohhh, we forgot it, din’t we.” He winces a little. Oops.

               But Max still doesn’t reply, so he gathers his words. As he keeps up with Max’s rather quick walking pace, he puts his hands out, placating. “Well, ‘ey, ‘ey. It’s no big deal, Max. I got like four of those at home, so—”

               “My phone was in that jacket,” Max mechanically, lowly says.

               “Ah _CRAP!_ ” Johnny explodes, immediately shooting into a run past Max and bursting through the doors. It is only now that Max starts running too, mere steps behind as they race back down the hall.

 

               Almost in sync, the two boys slam their hands down on the table and start scanning every inch of it.

               Even though it was clear twenty feet away that Johnny’s jacket is gone.

               While Johnny hits the deck to throw himself under the table, Max straightens back up. He glances around the nearby tables, grinding his teeth absentmindedly. Some area of his brain thinks that if whoever took their belongings was still here, they’d have a tell, and that he’d be able to pick it out. Though that’s a little harder to do when half the people here are shooting smiles their way every so often. Weird how they would still remember what Johnny’d done seven or eight minutes earlier.

               But he’s digressing. On purpose. Even if Johnny says he doesn’t care about the jacket, his phone is gone and that’s distinctly not good.

               From the opposite end of the table, his boyfriend pops back into view, his brow thoroughly creased and his mouth thoroughly frowned. He stands slowly, cracking his knuckles and looking around the large room. Max taps his fingers against the table.

               “Max, I…” Johnny’s hands flop against his sides helplessly. His feeble gaze is on Max. “I didn’t mean for this—”

               “Nah, it’s—” Max instinctively interrupts, shaking his head. He frowns into his cheek. He looks up at the glass ceiling, thinking, and adjusts his cap. He just barely notices that part of him telling himself that he _should_ be panicking more. That this _should_ be as big a problem as possible.

               It’s the same part that files this problem away as a “bad thing”- as irrecoverable evidence that they should have gone to school. That his _decision_ not to go to school is why _his phone just got stolen,_ and that he essentially had it coming the whole time. That there is nothing good about this situation.

               But wait. That doesn’t make sense, and even though he really wants to throw in the towel right now, he can think clearly enough to know that that math doesn’t add up. Because Max distinctly recalls having a decent time several times today. Many times today. So why does he have such a long list of bad things and no good things?

               Has his brain really been paying close enough attention to file _anything_ as a good thing? In moments where the last thing on his mind would have been keeping an abstract mathematical tally of exactly how well this day is going?

               … No. It only pays attention when something goes wrong. Like whenever Johnny threatened to get them in trouble at a block party, or when he thinks of school, or their conflict with the Academy kids. Or right now.

              That is not base covering. That’s waiting for any opportunity to say, “I told you so.”

              And frankly, that sudden realization makes him pretty dang sick of it. Besides. It’s just a phone. And it _is_ First Friday. Screw it.

              “You know what?” He says boldly, looking back at Johnny with a lopsided smile on his face. “Nah. Who cares?”

              “Really?” Johnny raises a brow in confusion. He squints like Max doesn’t know. “But… it’s your phone…”

              “Yeah, but to be fair, it was busted up,” he reasons. And he’s sort of amazed by how the reason just seems to tumble out of his mouth when he lets it. “And ancient. I mean… _you’ve_ seen it.” He shrugs, smiling a little more genuinely. “I’ve been holding out for my dad to buy me a new one, so this is as good an excuse as any.”

              He’s met with a mildly surprised stare. Johnny crosses his arms and relaxes his shoulders a bit as he takes in what Max said.

              “Let’s just go _do_ something,” he continues, unruffled. “I’m sure I’ll find something to panic about later.”

              Slowly, a beam spreads across Johnny’s face. There is a strange look of accomplishment in his eyes. He wanders around to Max’s side of the table. “If you say so, nerd lord. Still, s’my fault it got lost. I’m indebted, obviously.”

              “You are not,” Max replies matter-of-factly. He locks eyes with a stocky security guard on the other end of the food court. He’s not happy they’re here.

              “I’ll still make it up t’ you.”

              “Blah, blah, I can shoot you down later. We’re getting some nasty looks from our security guard friends from earlier.”

              Already moving again, Johnny jestingly looks around. “What? Where? I’ll fight ‘em.”

              Max pushes him from behind, back the way they came in the hopes of getting them out into the sunlight without conflict. “No, no, no you won’t.”

              And so they leave the mall’s centre behind, one jacket and one phone down. As he half walks, half is-shoved along, Johnny asks for his phone from his backpack so that he can call Max’s. But the moment he’d told Johnny it wasn’t a big deal, he believed it.

              The thing has caused him enough trouble for one day, anyway.

 

              “Man,” Johnny grumbles as they walk down the sidewalk several minutes later, shifting his pants. “My underwear situation is _not_ feelin’ good right now.”

              “I don’t want to know a single thing about your underwear situation,” Max deadpans. He takes a look at the sun; the same one doing a bang-up job heating the dampness off Johnny. He figures it’s almost a quarter past three by now- that’d give them a little over an hour until it’s time to go home. He’s going to ask Johnny for confirmation when he sees that he’s already got his phone out.

              “You’re still trying to call my phone?”

              “Yeh!” Johnny replies, looking up to Max from his screen as it rings away to a dead line. He adjusts the backpack on his shoulders. “I know it’s dead but maybe someone’ll like, pick up anyways?”

              Max raises a brow, grinning over. “Whoa, hold on. Are you an optimist? Because I don’t think I can—”

              Suddenly, just as the pair passes out from under the shade of a tree, another voice cuts in. From above.

              “Hey, East Hill!”

              Max and Johnny look to each other in unison- they both heard it. They turn their gazes to the next street up, beyond a steep brick wall and a guardrail. But more immediately worth noting than the guardrail is who is leant on it.

              The blond-haired Mayview Academy boy that they’d run into hours before, with his sister and her bike a foot or so behind, braces his left hand on the rail with a gray jacket in his fist. Johnny’s.

              In his other hand, raised in an exhibitive way, is Max’s phone.

              “I think someone picked up.” He sneers. Sneers so hard his face must hurt. “I must say, you sure know how to bring attention to yourselves.”

              Crap.

              Very quietly from beside Max, as he hangs up, Johnny whispers, “Are _you_ an optimist?”

              “Nope,” Max replies, just as quiet, just as calm. Then he takes several steps toward the wall, forcing the authority and anger into his voice as he glares up at the boy. “ _Give our stuff back, Academy!_ ”

              “Pffft!” The boy squints, lowering his hand to his side. “No.”

              Behind him, his sister is tapping her foot, leaning on her handlebars, bored and impatient.

              “What d’ya want,” Johnny says through gritted teeth. He folds his arms. Max takes a moment to make a quick sweep around with his eyes. Any path to cut up to their street is a long trek in either direction.

              “Oh, I already have what I want,” he calmly replies, shrugging. He’s chewing gum. “I mean, wealth and good looks and charisma aside. I just saw you two and wanted to rub it in.”

              The boy looks disgustingly pleased with himself. Max glowers into his soul. His hands go to his hips. “A jacket?” He drones. “A _phone?_ I would have figured you have six or seven of each already.”

              “It’s not the phone- though you’re right, I do,” the Academy boy says. He flips open the dead phone and looks down at it. “It’s what’s on the phone. Your contacts. Which I’m gonna assume includes your parents.”

              His parents. Now, why does that immediately give him a bad feeling in his gut? Ruling out lack of motivation and relative familiarity with sanity, it’s not like Academy suddenly has the power to _hurt_ his dad. Especially since it’s just his phone number in there. Knowing his dad’s phone number wouldn’t benefit Academy unless—

              Oh.

              “… Are… are you serious?” Max starts slowly. He is in disbelief, aggravation and rising, well-disguised unease. “ _That’s_ your endgame, you’re gonna _tell my dad on me?_ ”

              “Yeah,” he shoots back, frowning. The blonde girl’s eyes are suddenly on Max, and then her brother, and she almost says something, but her brother straightens up and turns his nose up at the two below. “I’m gonna tell your dad on you.” The grin leaks back into his face. It isn’t amiable at all. All of the genuinity in the rich boy tropiness that seeped from him before is long gone. This is genuine hate. “I’m going to tell your dad that you skipped school with _that thug_ and walked across town to hit girls and pick fights with some Mayview Academy debate team kids- just because they were richer and smarter than you.”

              Max would roll his eyes _intensely_ at that comment, but he’s frozen. He can’t believe this is happening.

              “Then I’ll tell him that I still wanted to return the phone you dropped, even if you were mean enough to rip my shirt—” And, suddenly enough to elicit sharp inhales from both Max and his sister and a flinch from Johnny, he harshly yanks on the sleeve of his polo shirt, tearing it at the shoulder seam. But he doesn’t stop, and pulls the wad of gum from his mouth. “—And put gum in my hair.”

              And without hesitation, he sticks the gum into his platinum blond hair in an unfavorable spot. Max’s mouth drops open, and so does the boy’s sister’s. Beside Max, Johnny’s jaw is tight and his brow is creased in shock.

              “Holy. Flipping. Crap,” Max whispers, the astonishment clearly shaking his voice. Searching for aid, he turns his wide eyes to Johnny, whose gaze is still locked on the boy above. “He’s Jack’s Smirking Revenging us. This all because I hit his sister…?”

              “This…” Johnny whispers back. He swallows slightly. There is a strange look in his eyes. “This has already been comin’, I think. For a while.”

              Academy’s words cut in. “I can’t imagine he’ll be impressed.”

              Grinding his teeth, Max whirls on the enemy again, words coming out on instinct. He looks like more of an idiot than he already did with his shirt ripped and hair sullied. “Hate to say it, but your plan won’t work. My phone’s dead.”

              There is a moment or so of distinct silence, and then the Academy boy’s shoulders drop. “We… we’ll just find a charger.”

              He seems caught off guard by how dumb the statement was. Johnny and the blonde girl both take a moment to give Max similar looks and shrugs, as if to ask, “what were you thinking?” Squinting at the sidewalk and scratching under his hat, he has to admit that he doesn’t know.

              The boy turns away then, dropping Max’s phone into his pocket and slinging Johnny’s jacket over his shoulder. He walks to his sister, waiting with her bike and rubbing the bruise on her jaw as she glares nastily back at him. Probably scolding him for ruining his hair and shirt.

              “’Cademy, he’s just some dumb kid!” Johnny raises his voice in furious protest, stepping forward. Max gets the feeling that if there wasn’t an insurmountable wall in his path, he’d be upon the Academy boy right now, fists flying. Promise or no.

              “Yeah, and I said he should go home. And he didn’t.” His sister mounts her bike and he steps onto the back wheel’s pegs. He smiles pitifully at Johnny, his snarl and his shaking fists. “But it looks like you won’t have to pretend to be civilized for him anymore. That’s a shame.” His smile switches to something more friendly and casual, but it’s a lie. “I think you would have made a great pushover! Seeya!”

              And the girl pushes off, pedaling away from Max and Johnny’s vantage point below. But Max isn’t doing a lot of looking up. He turns from the brick wall to Johnny, who stares right back at him. The intensity of his anger balances out Max’s own numb shock.

              Base-covering and flawed trains of logic aside. He wasn’t planning on being irrecoverably, excessively dead when he woke up this morning.

              But then, he was also planning on waking up on time. … So maybe he should have adjusted his expectations a little more than he did.

              “No evil laugh,” he murmurs to Johnny, waiting. On cue, the boyish snickering of the horrible Academy boy reaches their ears, fading out as the pair of siblings ride away.

              “Ah, there it is,” he sighs and Johnny begrudgingly nods. Well, that’s one expectation met.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: oh academy
> 
> remember how i talked about ferris bueller homages? THAT SCENE UP THERE IN THE MALL WAS ONE OF THOSE. also like retroactively a homage to that one scene in enchanted. you guys remember enchanted? that movie was funnyyyy.
> 
> we’re heading into family movie territory folks. HOW WILL OUR HEROES GET THEMSELVES OUT OF THIS ONE? TUNE IN TOMORROW OR SOMETHIN’


	4. Nothin' But A Good Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: it’s the beginning of the end folks.
> 
> (in the original AN's i'd said something here about putting this fic up on AO3 once it was up on tumblr! ... i did that!) either way, i hope you all are prepared for an out-and-out 90′s family movie climax, this crap is HAPPENING.

               Max can’t help but think about how ironic it is. The last time he chased someone down with so much motivation was the time Johnny stole his scooter and took off down the hills of Mayview with it. Long story. But a minute ago, the boy was running by his side (actually, taking the lead a bit) in his pursuit of the Academy kids and his phone. He would have thought it was cool, how many times their feet fell in sync as they ran, but he was understandably preoccupied.

               As he skidded at an intersection and picked a random direction, Johnny barked that it wasn’t right.

               “It’s just not right!” He practically roared. “This in’t about you, and he _knows_ it’s not!”

               He craned his neck to scowl back at Max, struggling to keep up. “You think that melodramatic gum-haired shirt-ripper cares you punched his sister anymore?!” He turned forward again once he almost tripped. “He has a problem with me- rightfully so, ‘cause problems is my business- and he’s draggin’ _you_ into it, because he knows I—!”

               And he’d stopped there, huffing in irritation, and Max kind of wished he hadn’t.

               “It’s not right.”

               But the Academy kids, of course, had a bike, and they had the knowledge of the West Hill streets on their side. Truthfully, Johnny and Max lost the pair pretty much immediately after taking off after them, and it wasn’t a few minutes later before their exhaustion slowed their blind running and ultimately stopped them.

               They lean against opposite walls under the shade of one of Mayview’s tiny bridges, having just gotten over a bout of wheezing and panting. Max slowly slides to the filthy ground and sits, bonking his head back against the cool brick wall. Johnny watches him for a few moments, then turns his gaze out to the sunlight and wipes the sweat from his forehead. They’re both quiet for a while.

               “This is why you don’t keep contacts in your phone,” Max manages to mutter, staring hollowly at the curved ceiling. His fingers pick a tiny little weed out of a crack in the ground. “This is why you individually memorize every single number.”

               Johnny says nothing, which leaves Max to his relentlessly winding thoughts. The thoughts like how you don’t fully appreciate how things happen when you’re not around until it means your butt. Somewhere he isn’t, someone is actively working to bust him into the next life, and he can almost feel it happening. He thinks about how _grounded_ he’s gonna be, how disappointed his dad’s going to be—

               His mouth interrupts his brain at once. He slaps his hands against his crossed legs in a beaten shrug. “That’s it!” He cries. Johnny looks at him, raising a brow, and he goes on, gesturing emphatically as he speaks.

               “I mean, that’s _it,_ isn’t it? _I’m_ dead, _you’re_ dead, _we’re_ never gonna see each other again—!” And he clamps his jaw and eyes shut tight, wincing away from the very idea.

               But it’s true. When his dad gets the Academy boy’s call from Max’s phone, he’s going to learn very quickly what a bad influence Johnny is. … And yes, set up ripped shirt and hair gum aside, Johnny Jhonny should be considered a bad influence. His levels of energy afford chaos and destruction and every path he takes is a warpath, et cetera et cetera, but he’s Max’s boyfriend. And his friend.

               And as he glares pathetically at the concrete, knowing full well his dad is _never_ gonna let him hang out with such a bad influence again… he silently adds that he was really having fun today.

               He can feel Johnny’s gaze on him. For a while.

               “No,” he finally says. It’s firm and certain and Max looks up across the gutter where Johnny’s brows are lowered and his golden eyes are fixed on him. “No, Max, I ain’t gonna let that happen.”

               Max just raises his hands in cynical questioning. “ _How_ aren’t you? We have no idea where they are, and all they have to do is find an old charger to plug in my phone…” He brushes dirt off his leg, voice trailing off into a mutter. “And then they’ll plug us into a shallow grave.”

               “Huh?”

               He stares emptily into space. “I can’t make analogies I’m dying.”

               “Yer not dying. Not today,” Johnny responds, steadfast. He starts pacing, eyes flickering, the gears turning fiercely in his mind. “… Kay. Maybe we don’t know where Academy _Prime_ went. But remember earlier? Those two’s loser friend was wearin’ his dumb uniform. And he wasn’t with ‘em just now.” He stops in his pacing to face Max again, a hint of a smile on his face. “I bet I know where _that_ chump’s at, and I bet _he_ knows where _they’d_ be at.”

               Max’s shoulders slump, his attention focused on Johnny’s words, but mostly to be confused by them. “J-Johnny, it’s like four o'clock. If you’re implying he’s in school—”

               “Yeah,” Johnny interrupts, fists on hips. “An’ who would be in school at 3:30 on a Friday, right?” His tight smile starts to grow. He speaks very carefully. “Except the captain of the debate team that meets up every Friday afternoon?”

               Slowly, Max straightens up. His mind breaks free of its standstill and its gears start turning too. He’s right. He does remember the third kid stammering about the debate team’s meeting today- it was one of the only things he _did_ say. So to Max, they’ve just gone from having no hope at all to exactly one (1) lead. And his mind starts racing, driving energy back into his limbs.

               “… Dang,” he says with a level of impression in his voice. He squints at Johnny. “Since when were you perceptive?”

               “Lot on the line, Mux,” Johnny tersely replies, walking to Max and reaching out his hand to help him up. “Let’s roll.”

 

               Something is wrong with Max, he expertly concludes. As they charge up the hill toward the grand Mayview Academy, perched neatly near its peak, and Johnny tells him in just as many words that they’re going to interrogate the kid from earlier for information, he doesn’t question it for a second. He thinks it’s a fine idea. And that’s with his sore feet and stinging throat. This has been an odd day.

               “Like I said, my phone is ancient,” he explains through gasps of air as the academy comes into view below the treetops for the first time. “So the chargers are too, they’d have to… look everywhere for one.”

               They grind to a nonchalant walk and become very silent as two uniform-clad students walk by them, shooting glances at the outsiders that they clearly are. Once they’re out of earshot, Johnny looks over.

               “An’ they will, believe me,” he says. He jams his hands in his pockets, trying to appear as casual as possible as they walk onto the school’s street. “They’re not gonna pass up an opportunity t’ bust us, so we gotta not waste time.”

               He paces further up the street with Max in tow, who studies the school. Stragglers- members of clubs, surely- come out of the school in small groups. The boy they’re after shouldn’t be too long after them. Johnny stops for a moment when he sees what he was looking for- his eyes are on a place a bit of a ways down the natural fence of rose bushes (like the ones at their school, but bigger and classier, you know) that stretch toward the back of the school.

               “C’mon,” he says, and dashes across the road. Max runs silently after him. He follows him along the outside of the wall of roses, and they stealth along it as Johnny searches for an opening he seems to be sure is there.

               “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Max whispers, smirking.

               “Sure. Egg this place all the time.” And to doubly confirm, he drops to his knees and pulls his backpack off. He tosses it through a small gap in the branches and is quick to crawl through after it.

               Max nods shortly to himself. “’Course you do.” He takes to his knees as well, ducking low to squeeze through the bush without getting caught on the thorns.

               When he emerges, Johnny is creeping through the grass, inching closer to the front schoolyard. He sits against the wall next to his backpack, and Max joins him. Johnny asks if he remembers what this _dweebate team captain_ looks like, and tells him to keep his eyes peeled. Beyond that, they stay quiet for a few more minutes as they play stakeout, with the only other sounds being the hum of the air conditioning unit a few yards back and the occasional student being freed from extracurricular activities.

               However rare they are, there are times when Max and Johnny sit in comfortable silence together, but this doesn’t feel comfortable. Johnny’s jaw is tight and his brow is knitted, and Max could play it off as focus but he looks too on edge- even for him. He’s getting sick of looking at it.

               “Can’t believe this dude went back to school,” he murmurs, shifting closer to Johnny. To make sure he hears.

               Johnny blinks at him. He seems to subconsciously work the tension out of his face. He shoots Max a quick grin and then scans the schoolyard. “Right? S’not any way to play hooky.”

               “You said snot.”

               “I mean, all day long you’re thinkin’ ‘bout school,” he goes on. He rolls one of his shoulders. “’Cause you’re focused on the time you have to go back. How’re you s’posed to call it a day off if you’re distracted by—”

               He stops, mouth half open. He shuts it again to frown contemplatively down at his ripped jeans. Max furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

               “Man, Max, this wasn’t supposed to happen with you,” he says bluntly, cocking his head and squinting at the roses a few feet ahead of them. “’Cause… y’get wound the heck up at school, alright? And I figured _maybe_ you’d have a good time with some classic skipping. Maybe it’d fix the fact that ya always look constipated.” Max is taken aback. It kind of makes him look constipated.

               “An’ I just don’t get it, because I didn’t wreck anyone or fight anything, but it still went all _conflict_ on us.” He shrugs, and Max watches silently as he turns his head away to casually study the school grounds. “Not what I had planned.”

               “You _planned?_ ” Comes Max’s kneejerk rag, before his brain can really register the rest of it. But then he does, and as he’s practically leaning across Johnny so they can both keep an eye out for the debate team kid from their stakeout point, he beams. They’re so close. And it’s not a headlock or a powerful clap on the shoulder and Johnny isn’t telling him to shove off, they just _are._ “… You know what, Johnny? I’m having fun.”

               “Y’can’t be serious.”

               “I am,” he says at once. He’d say it to Johnny’s face if it wouldn’t put them nose to nose right now. “I mean, I’m sure that’ll be negated if we can’t find those two in time, but for now, I kind of am.”

               Then there’s a pause while Johnny habitually cracks his knuckles. “Well,” he starts awkwardly. “Well, good. … ‘Cause we _are_ gonna find those two in time.”

               And then there’s another thick pause. Max’s grin grows as he practically hears Johnny’s brain struggle for more words. He leans further toward the corner of the school for a better look of the schoolyard. He hears the front doors swing open faintly, and awaits the next green-uniformed kid to come into view.

               And Max had a feeling he wasn’t done yet, but Johnny clumsily goes on, “So this is fun.” Just on schedule, the student clears their blind spot and strolls down the path toward the road. Max squints at him. “Like, other than this Academy-phone-stealing stuff, the… the rest of the First Friday stuff is fun.” That brown hair, the style… it’s him. The debate team kid. “Good. … Not that—not that I was worried or—”

               “Our dude’s here,” Max interrupts, as much as he hates to. Johnny seems relieved and whips his head toward the boy. “Our, uh, guy.”

               “There a car waiting for ‘im?” Johnny  asks straightaway, rising to his feet and pressing himself against the wall, ready to move.

               “Nope, guess he’s walking,” Max quickly says, and Johnny nods. He makes a show of cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. His face immediately sets into a dangerous expression. It’s like a switch has been flipped.

               “Aright, stay here,” he mutters, and dashes out of the shade of their hiding place. Max’s eyes slowly widen as he goes. It’s the dawning awareness of the reality of this situation. He’s about to watch Johnny bully information out of a kid. Premeditatedly. He grimaces in advance, afraid of how he knows this is going to go. What should he do…?

               In the distance, he sees Johnny walk right up to the boy and take hold of the collar of his uniform jacket. And without any flair, he whirls right back around and briskly walks back toward their hiding place, yanking the confused, yelping debater as he goes.

               They come into range and it’s almost funny, how bored and silent Johnny is at the same time the captive boy, heels dragging through the grass, is scrambling to get away (or at least _stand up straight_ ) and crying out demands and accusations.

               “What’s going on?!” He shouts, arms flailing for a grasp of his own collar. “Who are you, wh-where are you taking me?! Let me go! My dad works for the FBI— _whoa!_ ”

               Johnny flings his arm forward once they’re beyond the wall, releasing the boy and sending him stumbling through the grass. Max rises to his feet. The boy spins to face his kidnapper, straightening his jacket indignantly, but his expression is quick to fall when he sees Johnny.

               “I-it’s you! East Hill…!” He stammers. He takes a few careful steps back, and his eyes flicker to Max, who is all-around less imposing than his red-headed counterpart. “And that kid!”

               “Hey!” Johnny warmly greets, waving.

               And in the half second that follows he’s taken hold of the lapels of the boy’s jacket and shoved him against the brick wall. Max and the boy both gasp. His eyes are filled with shock as Johnny glowers him down.

               Max groans inwardly without really trying to. He’s not going to pretend he hadn’t met this side of Johnny before they were friends.

               “My jacket, his phone,” Johnny begins lowly. “Yer two blond friends stole ‘em. You know where they’d be. Fact or yes fact?”

               The boy is taken by surprise and his eyes shoot wide open. In a flash he turns his head away, swallowing hard. His eyes flicker around, and Max can see how clearly he is scrambling for a response. After a pause he says, snootily as he can manage, “Y-you’re lying. Why would they steal from a couple of broke kids?”

               “So they could bust us for skipping.” His frown deepens. “What’s more, frame us for stickin’ gum in that freak’s hair and ripping his own stupid shirt.”

               “Wait, frame you for _what?_ ” The debater blurts out. “But at the mall he didn’t say he’d—”

               He cuts himself off rather quickly, knowing at once that he’d said too much. But the both of them catch it. He knows, alright. If he was with them when Academy took their stuff, he’d know where they were heading to when they split up.

               After a quick exchange of dull glances with Max, Johnny scowls threateningly at the boy, hand still bracing his shoulder against the wall. “… As I was sayin’, you know where we could find them havin’ our stuff, so I suggest you spill your beans ‘fore I’m forced t’ use a _can opener._ We’re on a time limit and we don’t have time for no foolery.”

               “You’re a slob,” the boy sneers. “Y-You deserve to get busted. I’d never tell you.”

               “Yeah. Ya would,” Johnny says. “That’s why we’re here. But I’d start thinkin’ some thoughts about whether or not ya want to start talking _right now_ or _real soon._ ”

               A condescending scoff is all he gets in reply, and he narrows his eyes. Max tenses, ready to intervene. Oh, but he knew this was coming. It’s been coming all day. Here goes that promise.

               “Fine then,” he goes on slowly. His grip on the captive’s shoulder noticeably tightens. He looks over to Puckett, who stares unenthusiastically back at him. Fists fly in five… four… “Get me my backpack, kid?”

               Max is still for a few moments. He almost jumps when he realizes he’s been commanded, and impulsively scrambles for Johnny’s backpack in the grass. He picks it up and holds it out toward him, realizing only now that it’s already unzipped.

               Johnny gives him a nod and reaches into its depths, rummaging around for a brief moment before his hand falls upon something. With a baton-like spin, he pulls out a jar of honey and flips the cap open. Max raises an eyebrow. What.

               … Wait.

               “This is some honey,” Johnny tells the boy, plain as day. He grins, and there’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. “I will now pour all of it into your pockets.”

               A bewildered smile breaks across Max’s face. He can’t help it. Especially when this means he isn’t about to witness a beating, and especially when the debate captain yelps in alarm and instinctively ducks away. Of course, he doesn’t get far.

               “Wh-what?!” He cries. He flattens himself against the wall. “That isn’t funny, these uniforms are really expensive!”

               “Haha, I’ll bet!” Comes Johnny’s deranged laugh. “Have you ever had ta use a power washer to wash your clothes? ‘Cause yer about tooooo!”

               Max snorts. He knows that’s a flagrant exaggeration, but he adds onto it anyway. “It’s like accidentally touching sap while climbing a tree, but like, ten times worse and everywhere.”

               “I don’t… I don’t climb trees.”

               “That’s really sad, though.”

               “Well you’re about to get the experience, buddy!” Johnny barks. He flips the container and holds it threateningly above the misplaced captain. And that is just about all it takes. Debater folds.

               “Dahh, okay, okay, _Retrox!_ ” He cries. Johnny caps the jar of honey right on cue, clearly unimpressed by how quickly he caved. The debater shrinks impossibly lower.

               “They went to Retrox! _They go there every time their…_ ” And he trails off into a mutter, seeming to hate himself all of a sudden. “… dad’s out of town.”

               “Re… trox?”

               Johnny straightens up and turns to his partner, confusion in his expression. Max is a little confused too, but his mind is working on it. See, the problem is, the debater pronounced it wrong. As his brain flips through all the possible spellings of the word, it hits him. Re _traux._

               “Retro.”

               Johnny cocks his head inquisitively.

               “It’s pronounced _Retro,_ it’s like… a French thing. Retraux is a diner we passed on the way up here,” he explains. And as he talks, something _else_ hits him. “It’s at the bottom of the hill.”

               “Ohh,” Johnny says quietly, his face lighting up with recollection. “… But wait, no, he’s right. That spells Retrox.”

               “Nope.”

               Johnny’s attention is back on the sad little academic against the wall. He frowns. “Free to go, kid,” he says, and releases his grip on the boy. Who dashes off in an instant and without another word. He brushes right past the smiling Max (Probably shouldn’t have, but he did.) and runs across the schoolyard as quickly as he can.

               “ _Be good!_ ” Johnny calls after him. The two watch him disappear, and he unceremoniously drops the half-full jar of slightly crystallized honey back into his open backpack and picks it up.

               “Aright. Well,” he begins, stretching. “That was painless. But he’s prob’ly gonna tell them we’re comin’.”

               “Nah, he’s not,” Max reassures him and casually shows him the smartphone in his hand. That is not going to be a problem. He starts walking back toward their rosebush exit (as more of a formality than anything), leaving Johnny stunned for a few feet. He grins.

               Johnny catches up to him quick and folds his arms to take in the shrimpy boy before him. “You counter-jacked his phone,” he declares, impressed. “Since when were you light-fingered?”

               “Since boys kept stealing my pencils in math class,” Max says simply, crouching to crawl back through.

               He stands up on the other side and tosses the kid’s phone to Johnny once he’s through. He straightens his ballcap. “Come on. We’ve got an intentionally aesthetically outdated party to crash.”

 

               And just like that- just like that hard cut- the pair is running again. _Again,_ they are _running._ Luckily for Max, it’s downhill this time. But running downhill can only save so much stamina, and it can only save so much time. And time is not a resource they have a lot of. From now until the denouement, it’s go time.

               “How long did it take us to get to the bottom of East Hill this morning?” He asks, regretful of the breath it takes up.

               “Like… ten minutes?”

               Max makes a whole lot of really basic estimational calculations in his head, worry setting over him. “… I don’t know if that’s enough time.”

               Johnny winces slightly, like the knowledge is painful. “Yeah, maybe not walking.”

               “Maybe not _running,_ either!” He raises his voice, trying to keep a lid on the panic. “The chargers are hard to find, but it’s not _that_ hard! If we’re running under the assumption that they grabbed a charger at some corner store and rode down to Retraux to celebrate their immoral victory, they’re probably there right now. It’ll be no time at all before my phone boots up.”

               They become quiet. It’s clear that the both of them are racking their brains for a solution at the same time. Johnny is desperately counting who knows what on his fingers and Max… Max is trying to think of something Johnny would do. It’s gotten them this far.

               They pass through and alley and onto a street just then, and something idiotic and crazy switches on in Max’s head. He skids to a stop in the middle of the road, which he’d never do except for the fact that he’s standing in the midst of a block party right now. As Johnny notices he’s stopped and stops too, he looks hastily around at the various tables and people and games. Block parties. He’s remembering _something_ about block parties, what is it?

               “What’s up, kid?”

               Johnny doesn’t get an answer as Max stares around like a crazy person, but he finally spots them just a few yards away. He knew they’d be here. They’ve been at all of the block parties. A group of skater teens.

               And with them, of course, their skateboards. The beginnings of a deranged (yet simple) plan start to take form in his mind. Maybe not running. Maybe not using their legs.

                _It’s for the phone,_ he starts aggressively thinking, purposely drowning out any rational thoughts that come his way. As stated, it’s gotten them this far. He eyes one board in particular, one that’s a little longer than a typical skateboard. Nobody’s holding it, nobody’s standing on it. It’s just… there. _It’s for the phone. It’s for the phone._

               “… Max?”

               [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJE85S4hSGs)

               “It’s for the phone,” Max responds abruptly, and without another word, dashes full-tilt toward the small group of skaters. He doesn’t bother to check if Johnny’s on his heels. He’ll work it out.

               He zeroes in on the rogue long skateboard (he’ll call it a  _longboard_ ) and scoops it off the ground without stopping for a moment. Then he tucks it under his arm and zips toward the roadblock at the edge of the party as he hears the shouts of the skaters taking off after him. They have a few choice words for him right off the bat, all of which can’t be included for the target audience.

               “Sorry, I need this! We’re going to Retraux!” He calls back to them with as much nonchalance as he can muster. “Retrox, whatever! Meet us there!”

               He slips under the roadblock and skids around the corner, down the hill. He’s got to shake them as fast as possible without shaking Johnny too. But then, he notes, Johnny has always had a way of hunting Max down.

               A force slams clumsily into him, a hand clamps down on his arm. See? “What’re ya doing, ya friggin’ bus-jumper?!”

               “Don’t _you_ start with me, scooter thief!” He bites back, shooting a look at a huffing Johnny who’s just joined him. So he jumped through a bus! He’d call him a bus-jumper if he did anything _slightly_ rash. To be fair, this is _incredibly_ rash.

              He starts scanning the fragmented pavement. It’s a very simple plan. “Look, this is gonna be our fastest way down.”

               “… D’you know how to skateboard?”

               “No, but I had something similar in mind,” he says, and crouches for a second to grab one large rock, and then another. Then he’s running again. (Which physically burns at this point.) “We need a straight shot. The road from the bridge leads straight up, right?”

               There is a second of silence as Johnny plays catch-up with the plan. “Yeah, but we shouldn’t take it.”

               “Why?”

               Johnny plainly turns his head away, scratching the back of his neck. “… Too dangerous.”

               “Too _dangerous?_ ” Max scoffs, astounded. “Ohohoh, tough guy! You care about workplace safety now, huh?”

               “Listen, we’ve come this far, aight?! Can’t have ya gettin’ dead _now!_ ” Johnny shoots back defensively, but the grin in his eyes is apparent. “… C’mon, we take the forest road. S’quicker anyway, less intersections.”

               He takes Johnny’s word for it and follows his lead to the northernmost road of West Hill Mayview- luckily, just a street or two down. It’s not a minute before the two boys come sliding out of a dirt alleyway between two yards and into the shade of the canopy at the edge of the forest.

               Though the forest road is narrow and empty, the bend makes Max nervous. But he’s not never seeing Johnny again.

               He shakes his head, sets the board down on the slanted asphalt, and sits down on the front of it. On cue, Johnny sits right behind him, folding in his legs. It’s a tight squeeze. Exhaling, and tightly holding one rock in each hand, he lifts his feet off the ground. They begin rolling immediately.

               “Okay,” Max breathes as they gradually pick up speed. Good a time as any to start explaining. The anxiety is embarrassingly clear in his voice. “This is gonna be faster than running, but it can’t be too fast or we… _will_ crack our skulls open.

               “Rocks are the brakes,” he explains, holding up his left hand to show Johnny seconds before he realizes they’re already heading for a guardrail. He leans hard to the left and slams the rock against the ground—“And _turning_ Iguess!”—grinding stone against asphalt, and the combined efforts angle them to the right and around the bend. “… And, basically, pray.”

               “Right,” Johnny says with a curt nod. He pats Max’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Mux, I got the practice for this.”

               “You’ve got the practice that slammed your head into a rock, so let’s not think about that.”

               The board picks up more and more speed as the seconds tick by, leaving Max’s brakes hovering inches above the road in case they need to stop quickly. … He wonders how quick a stop would be needed to send them both flying. He tries not to think about that either. He tries not to think about anything apart from minute adjustments in their trajectory and making sure nothing bursts out from the backyards or from the forest on the other side of the guardrail. They’re going so fast.

               “Yeah, this is faster than running,” Johnny comments. It’s only now that Max notices both his hands are clasped on his shoulders, securely holding onto him. It doesn’t logically increase their chances of survival, but it’s still comforting. “Good thinkin’, Puckett.”

               “Well, you know,” Max exhales with a small smile. Scenery whipping by their helmetless heads at dangerous speeds, and he’s still smiling. “Figured I should do something cool.”

               With keen eyes and synchronized leaning, they avoid the minor obstacles that come their way, and the ride is moderately smooth. They almost make a game out of it, and if it wasn’t absurdly dangerous, it might as well be.

               “Branch, boi, branch!” Johnny cries out, almost laughing.

               “Yup!” Max responds, and together, they clear the felled tree limb with ease. He wonders if this is a sport. Besides braking when the ride threatens to get too quick for comfort, they really don’t need the hefty rocks much for steering. Even with the leftward bend, they can see impediments quickly enough that the hard turns the stones would afford aren’t necessary.

               Still, they’re intentionally travelling at speeds faster than downhill running, not strapped in. Max knows he’ll be grateful when Retraux comes into view. And thinking about arriving at the faux-retro diner leads his already racing mind to something else.

               “Wait, we have that wimp’s phone,” he hears Johnny say through his thoughts and feels him shift, taking one of his hands from Max’s shoulders. “We could totally mess with—ahh, needs a password. … I can still lock ‘im out by punching in random crap, though.”

               “Do it,” Max mutters simply, his gaze flickering about the zooming path ahead of them. He carefully skids the brakes against the ground, slowing them down a bit.

               “… Wonder about their dad,” he finally says, voicing his thoughts. “Academy Prime’s.”

               “Uhh, what about ‘im?”

               “Well among, oh, _so_ many other useful things, basic study of psychology comes easy to me,” he replies like it’s a matter of fact. They hit a small bump. The forest road is starting to straighten out. “From what I’ve heard today they don’t really seem to like him. I just wonder.”

               “Y-you got that?!” Johnny stammers, dumbfounded- almost annoyed. “How the punch do ya pick up on _that_ stuff, and not—” And he cuts himself right off. Again.

               “And not what?” Max asks, the sudden stop being enough to make him glance back.

               “Nothin’.” Johnny’s arm flies up, pointing forward. “ _STOP SIGN!_ ”

               Whipping his head around fast, Max scrapes both rocks into the ground, bringing them to a screeching halt as they reach an intersection and with it, a brief area of level ground.

               The pair stands up and brush themselves off, peering around the corner to make sure traffic isn’t coming.

               … It’s not.

               They dash across the intersection, Johnny shouting for them to _go, go, go, go!_

               Within no time they’re sat down, hurtling down the road again. It’s like this for the next one or two minutes. A montage of a ridiculous, convoluted race against the clock in the form of a speeding skateboard, intercut with Max and Johnny dashing across gradually more frequent intersections as fast as they can and past the befuddled gazes they get from strangers. They further they get down the cracked road, the sparser the trees and houses become. The lake is in clear view. Won’t be long now.

               “Against all odds, this has been without tragedy,” says Max with a puff as they zoom ahead at overconfident speeds. He takes the moment of respite to notice his hands are getting sore. It’s not exactly the most comfortable position he’s in. They pass by an old wooden dresser out on the curb and a sign reading _MOVING SALE_ and he gives his left wrist a shake.

               Just about the same moment the board bangs over a crack in the ground. The bump jostles the rock right from his grip and it disappears behind them within a second. Max flexes his vacant hand, numbly processing.

               “I hear beeping. – Wait, what just happened?”

               “I, uhh… lost a brake,” he slowly responds. His brain starts to lose its nerve. One brake down, he’s already anxious to stop the ride. “B-but it’s no problem. Still not tragic, we’ve got another!”

               But even still, he studies the immediate road, trying to figure out how exactly he’s about to make one rock brake work for a stop. He catches a presence in the top of his periphery.

               “Uhh… _kid…?_ ”

               Max hears beeping, too. It’s the sound of a truck backing up. Once he’s snapped his head up in alarm, he deduces that it’s one specific moving truck backing up, out of a hidden driveway and right into their path. They are, in what must be the fates having a round of black comedy, in prime trajectory for T-boning into the side of it like flies on a windshield.

               His heart races in horror. Okay, they need to stop. They need to stop now. Clumsily, with the large rock held in both hands, he slams it down just ahead of the speeding skateboard in desperation. But their speed is too high even on the leveling ground, and his braking attempt, too rash. The front of the board practically eats their one remaining brake out of Max’s hands and he stares down at the zooming road, horrified, as they rattle over it.

               “Puckett!”

               “OKAY, IT’S TRAGIC!” Max sputters, rocketed into a panic. “THERE’S TRAGEDY!”

               “ _Hold on!_ ” Johnny roars. He throws his arms around Max like a vice and heaves his legs out from under him. With no hesitation, he slams his left heel into the ground. It skips off the asphalt harshly a few times before gaining any traction, and once it does they veer left _hard._ Just in time to barely clear the corner of the slowly rolling truck- enough that they can sense it whoosh right by their ears, enough that they can feel the heat coming off the exhaust- and shoot toward the opposite sidewalk.

               Johnny then smashes his right heel into the ground, angling them the opposite way before they can collide with the curb and sending them down the road again.

               Max finally breathes. Trembling, he gasps, “Holyheck.”

               They clatter across a storm drain, finally having made it to the relatively level ground at the bottom of West Hill, but still not losing any speed just yet as they zoom right across the lake road. One arm still around Max, Johnny rubs his leg and quickly glances over his shoulder as the truck slips further and further behind them. Max is still staring forward.

               “Hey Max, remember that time we almost got ourselves brained onna parked truck?” Johnny quips while Max starts clumsily tapping his knee for attention.

               “U-um, not out of the frying pan yet—”

               “Relax, dude, we’re on level ground!” Johnny tells the back of Max’s head with confidence.

               “But our _velocity’s still an issue!_ ” Max cries, his arm flying up to point straight ahead of them. They’ve made it to the lake, alright. They’re also about to make it directly into a curb. With a yelp of surprise, Johnny hastens to use his legs as brakes again, but in an instant they’re roughly halted.

               The skateboard crashes against the curb and catapults the two boys clear over it. They’re thrown tumbling gracelessly into the grass, becoming separated after Johnny’s respectable attempt to shield Max’s head.

              Max’s head, as he comes tumbling and rolling to a stop, is fine. As far as he can tell. It’s swimming with nausea.

              He turns onto his back, and as he lies sprawled out in the cool grass by the shore, he stares up at the blue, spinning sky over his head. His heart is pounding. Several points on his body- his knees, his hip, his shoulder- are warm with pain, but he feels… exhilarated. And in all honesty, generally pleased with his level of _living_ right now. So even though it’s not entirely in fitting with his brooding persona, he lets the dazed, jubilant laughter pour out, and he doesn’t try to stop it.

              “Max! _Max!_ Are you alright?!”

              “Yep!” He chirps and pops up into a sitting position with a shake of his aching head. Where’s his hat? Johnny’s come rushing to his side to grab at his shoulders and his face.

              “H-how’s your skull, boi?” He asks, a sappy amount of concern disguised in his voice. He turns Max’s head in his hands by the jaw, inspecting it for any distinct blood. Or dents.

              “M’skull’s fine,” Max chuckles, reflexively swatting and ducking away from the delicate contact. He spots his hat on the ground and reattaches it to his head.

              Johnny, after hovering over Max long enough to determine that he’s okay, collapses off his shaking legs and onto his rump. He laughs and gently rests his hand on Max’s knee. The amber in his eyes catches the light of the sun. “Dude. That… That was flippin’ awesome.”

              “Grit and grace,” Max plainly says, grinning back. Then his gaze flickers past him and the smile on his face slips as he remembers.

              Right. They have something to do here. Wobbling, slow, he rises to his feet, taking Johnny’s hands to help him up as he gives his sore leg an experimental bend. Max puts a hand on his hip and adjusts his cap to take in Retraux, just across an empty, overgrown lot from them. Johnny follows his gaze and automatically cracks his knuckles.

              Without verbal discussion over whether or not they’re game for this, the two walk, and then run across the lot.

              “Alright,” Max says as they go, calmer than he anticipated. “I’m gonna make an entrance.”

              “Oh yeah?”

              “Oh yeah.”

              Oh yeah. A dramatic one. Because as he runs toward the diner to where the blond siblings are almost certainly (and hopefully because it’s their only lead) waiting inside, the idea of one grows more and more satisfying. Between how this kid has spectacularly derailed First Friday for Johnny and Max and the way that this entire situation has seemed to escalate exponentially, it only seems right to practically kick the door open and announce their presence for their final showdown.

              He doesn’t kick the door open.

              (Because his feet hurt and also he doesn’t want to break the door.)

              But he does throw it open with enough might to smack it against the wall and nearly knock off the bell that broadcasts their arrival. Several of the few present patrons turn to look, along with- posted at a table just across from the door- Academy and his sister. Fists balled up at his sides, Max glares them down.

              “Drop the phone, Academy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: OHHH IT’S KICKING OFF. can i tell you how much of an exercise this story has been for me? i mean, apart from the obvious general storytelling exercise that i mentioned in the about. i almost NEVER write fast-paced scenes. pro tip: write fanfiction. you will improve in all the best ways
> 
> okay, get ready for the next chapter because it’s also the LAST ONE. if you couldn’t tell. from the pacing. i sincerely hope you all have been enjoying this fic!


	5. Friday I'm In Love

               “I’m not—holding it…?” Academy awkwardly replies from across the otherwise conversation-starved diner.

               To his credit, he’s not. Max’s phone sits plugged in on the Academy boy’s table, next to his milkshake and across from his evidently fuming sister.

               The stares in the diner remain on them. To be fair, they did just make a dramatic entrance. And with their dirtied clothes, mussed up hair and various scraped knees and elbows… they’ve certainly looked less odd.

               “Givvit up, nerd,” Johnny says, stepping in beside Max. He gives his fist an unconscious pound to the palm. “We come bearing crazy.”

               “Not!” Max suddenly speaks up, loud enough for all of the patrons to hear. “The kind that should worry anyone else in this fine public eating establishment…!” Then, his focus back on Academy, he narrows his eyes. “But yeah. We should settle this.”

               “Why. Are they here,” the sister asks her brother, and Max can practically hear her teeth grind together.

               “I don’t know,” he responds. He gives them a bemused look. “Did you track us all the way down here?”

               They exchange furtive glances. “We did some research.”

               Academy slides out of his seat to fold his arms and wrinkle his nose at Max and Johnny. His sister buries her face in her hands. He tilts his head up, looking prideful. Or, at the very least, on a power trip. It would be more impressive if there wasn’t gum in his hair. “It doesn’t matter. You’re too late. I already called your _dad_ and told him everything you did.”

               Somewhere, faintly, a balloon can be heard deflating. Johnny’s shoulders slump.

               “Wh-what…?” Max murmurs.

               “No, you didn’t,” the blonde girl says all of a sudden, raising her head just enough to look at her brother. “His phone isn’t charged enough to turn on yet.”

               There’s an inaudible sigh of relief shared between Max and Johnny. The boy’s mind takes a second of time to register what she said, then his hands flop down to his sides. He turns slightly to look at her. “… Why would you tell them that?”

               She just glowers back at him.

               “We’re not going to fight you,” Max says, slow and firm. “We just want our stuff back.”

               “You can have it back when we’re done with it,” Academy shoots back, frowning into his cheek.

               “How can you get done with my jacket?” Johnny asks, more to annoy their antagonist with semantics than anything. “Y’don’t even need it.”

               The platinum blond looks over his shoulder at Johnny’s jacket, draped over the back of their booth. He looks like he forgot about it. “Oh. Oh yeah.” He shrugs. “Yeah, I’m keeping that.”

               Johnny moves toward the boy dangerously, ready to put the scare in him. Which he does, even as Max grabs the back of his collar and stops him from going any further. The boy takes a step back and straightens his sweater, trying to keep on a brave face even though it’s clear he’s intimidated by Johnny. His sister is rapidly tapping her hand against the table. Max squints. “A-anyway, back off and crawl back home, East Hill! You don’t want to start any trouble. My uncle owns Retraux.”

               Max exchanges dry glances with Johnny, muttering, “Of course his uncle owns Retraux.”

               “Guess that’d explain why they always come ‘ere,” Johnny mutters back. Their situation is not improving.

               The boy briefly scratches at the gum in his hair, seems to remember it’s there at all, and bristles. He’s losing his patience. “How would you like to get forcibly kicked out of the only decent diner in Mayview? Because that would be really funny to watch.”

               Johnny opens his mouth and shuts it, for once taking care what he says. What are they to do? If they get kicked out now, that’s it for them. Because if this escalates any further, it’s going to involve adults. And involving adults will almost certainly lead to them getting busted.

               “A—Academy, what do you _want?_ ” Max finally says, his frustration clear.

               “You really want to know?” He hisses back, suddenly all-serious, and Max starts to feel cold. He points at Johnny. “I want something bad to happen to this dolt and his gang for once. I don’t know how well you know him, but he’s not just _stupid,_ you know. That kind of person can hurt smaller, weaker people any time he wants, and I guarantee you he does.”

               Johnny looks like he’s seen a ghost.

               Max stares at him- his shoulders are tense, his hands in fists, the color draining from his face- and is caught between supporting him and unleashing fury on Academy. He’d like to do both. The part of his mind that would be panicking on instinct right now has been long since shut up by their flight down the hill.

               Of _course_ he knows. Of course he knows Johnny isn’t just stupid. But he also knows that he isn’t just violent. It’s obvious to him that there is so much more than that. And he spikes with rage and indignation knowing that all of this trouble is coming from somebody who has no clue about any of it.

               “And you. You didn’t even need to _try_ to give me a reason. You hit my sister.” There’s no anger as he says it. He just says it like having done it made Max a moron. Like the moron who’s been two laps behind for a while now and is, by all means, an acceptable target. Because what could he possibly do to get him back?

               “As far as I know or care, you’re just like him.”

               And at the moment that Max opens his mouth and finds no words there, the blonde girl speaks again.

               “I said I didn’t care.”

               Her brother looks at her, and so do our protagonists, and so do the audience members of this outright tennis match. Her head is down.

               “What?”

               She slams her hands down on the table and stands up, staring straight at her brother. “I said I didn’t _care,_ Nick!” She yells. “You _know_ I didn’t care. I _told you!_ ”

               Before the stunned boy can say anything, she’s pulling the phone charger from the outlet in the wall and tearing it from Max’s phone. “Nick, I wanna go _home._ You told me First Friday was supposed to be fun, but all _you’ve_ been doing all day is embarrassing me and wasting my time and messing around with-” She points at Johnny and Max, who glance at one another- “ _That_ idiot and _that_ idiot!”

               The blond boy—Nick—steps back with wide eyes and hitched up shoulders, staring in shock at his enraged sister. Her hands are in fists.

               “Now _dad’s_ gonna be home in less than an hour,” Her voice cracks gracelessly. “And I barely got to do anything fun while he was gone!”

               Now there is a real, heavy silence over the diner. Max doesn’t quite consciously notice, but every last bit of the frustration and anger has just drained from his body. He just watches the two siblings in front of him. The girl waits for her brother to say something, and he wrings his hands. He seems so much smaller, so lacking in the self-importance that he had a minute ago.

               “Mia… b-” He starts with a helpless gesture toward them. “He’s a jerk…!”

               She throws her hands up, incensed. “ _Yeah,_ he’s a jerk! He’s East Hill, okay, they’re all a bunch of lower class jerks! But that’s not why I skipped school today!”

               Her explosion of anger seems to slowly leave her, and she, too, becomes aware of her surroundings. All of the eyes on her. Max lowers his to be polite. She lamely finishes, “I wanted to have—fun.”

               There is a pause (every pause seems _pronouncedly_ pregnant at this point) and she picks up Max’s phone and Johnny’s jacket. Then she leaves their table and walks with them across the diner, stopping in front of Max. Her expression is in a sort of intentional blank state that Max is familiar with, and she holds out the two items toward him.

               He stares at the phone and jacket, then up at her. Mia. He looks back at the items and, awkwardly, takes them.

               “Thanks,” he says, not really sure what else to say. But then, in the interest of items being returned to their rightful owners, he remembers. “Um!”

               He reaches seamlessly into Johnny’s pocket (who is surprised by this) and takes out the _other_ Academy boy’s phone that they’d taken as a sort of insurance. He hands it toward Mia. When she squints at it and raises an eyebrow, he elaborates, “… We ran into your friend.”

               “Right,” is her dull response, and she takes it. She walks past the two of them, and after a moment of consideration, looks to her stranded brother. “I’m gonna be outside. Can you pay?”

               And she pulls the door open and walks out of Retraux.

               Johnny and Max look from her, to each other, to Nick: standing at the table scratching the back of his neck, avoiding showing his face to anyone. He says nothing, and slowly, the patrons in the surrounding eatery return to their meals and low conversations; the drama is over.

               After a quick look at their belongings, Max gives Johnny a soft nudge and nods toward the door. Yeah. They should probably exeunt. The two walk out of the diner and trek across the parking lot to the sidewalk, the nearby bridge clear in their sights.

               As they move, Max looks down at his semi-charged phone and a wave of weariness begins to set over him. He’s grateful when they make it to the foot of the large bridge and it’s noiselessly agreed that they stop to lean on the rail for a moment. And there they rest, sides pressed against each other, taking in all of what’s just happened.

               Frowning into his cheek, Max shrugs and sums it up: “… Wow.”

               “Bruh, that was some _stuff,_ ” Johnny says before the word is fully out of his mouth, glad he was the one to break the silence between them.

               “Uhh, yeah.” Max isn’t sure how to feel. Their day was derailed by all of this nonsense, and those kids- he doesn’t even _know_ them. Or what that story really is. But after what just happened and what Mia said to her brother Nick back there, it makes part of him want to at least say something. … It just doesn’t feel like his place to.

               “Well, ‘ey, at least we got this stuff back,” Johnny says with a small smirk, reaching for Max’s wrist and lifting it to show him the phone in his hand. Max physically can’t not smile at the warm feeling it gives him.

               “Yeah,” he replies, only half aware that his eyes are glued to Johnny’s hand on his. “… I just can’t help but feel like we’re forgetting one thing.”

               “Hey, you!”

               They both look up quickly. What is it _now?_

               What it is now is a few teenage faces that Max has to work to recognize for a split second. Then he remembers- fairly clearly, actually. The skaters from that block party up the hill. They don’t look too pleased to see him, but they certainly look out of breath.

               “Oh, criminy,” Max whispers to himself. He relaxes himself against the rail as much as possible, becoming the embodiment of nonchalance. “Yo. Dudes.”

               There are young ears present, but in less polite words than these, one of the teens asks Max if he thinks he’s funny. (Presumably the one who had his skateboard commandeered- but hey, he’s holding it again!) Max ducks his head slightly. Hoo boy.

               “Look, we can explain. It was this whole big thing, okay?” He begins, gesticulating. He begins to go into detail, and turns to Johnny beside him for aid. “We got into this conflict and this kid took our stuff and oh you’re running huh?”

               Johnny is not beside him. Johnny is a good 20 yards down the bridge, legging it.

               Calmly, Max looks back to the group of expectant teens upon him.

               … Yeah.

               “Alright, well seeya!” He chirps, giving a quick farewell salute. In the next breath, he whirls and sprints down the bridge after Johnny.

               The act of which, at this point, feels like the equivalent of punting a small box of hammers. But he keeps on running to catch up to his boyfriend, who, cackling, outstretches his hand for Max to take. He does, and that’s how they leave West Hill Mayview behind for the day: running hand in hand, laughing. By all accounts, Maxwell Puckett should feel pretty goofy about it, but he really only feels light.

 

               They’d been walking for a while by the time they’re well within the borders of East Hill. A few minutes ago Max made a joke about how sweaty their hands were, and he shouldn’t have, because now their hands are also free. That doesn’t ruin this for him, though. And that’s a newfound ability that he’s pretty proud of.

               Just as he’s smiling to himself about it, he notices Johnny’s expression. And it’s an expression he’s seen before- this is the expression of a Johnny who is struggling to think. He can imagine what about.

               “Academy’s a pretty interesting character,” he drones.

               “No, uh, kiddin’,” Johnny replies. He seems to know that Max can tell just what he’s mulling over. “I was just thinkin’. What if he wasn’t wrong? About some things.”

               “About what things?” Max asks. He can see where this is going. And when Johnny doesn’t respond apart from sort of looking away and rubbing the back of his neck, Max shakes his head and goes on. “Johnny, this is the same kid who ripped his own shirt and stuck gum in his own hair to frame us.” Johnny glances at him. “I’m not going to try to say you’re innocent. Just… let people other than the bad guys judge you.”

               It takes a second, but Johnny smiles, little by little. Max leisurely folds the jacket in his arms. “You spent this entire day intentionally straying from violence, even in situations where I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

               Johnny kinda scoffs, shrugging like it’s nothing. “Yeah, I mean. For you.”

               They’d been walking side by side all this time, but that’s what slows Max in his tracks until he comes to a stop. It’s just as well- they’ve reached the oft-idle three-way intersection that the two determined a while ago marks the rough midway point between their houses. Johnny stops up ahead of him, hands on his hips.

               “Aright, here’s halfway. Guess this is where we finally split. … Yo, what up?”

               Max tries to shake it off, but this is a kind of what up that can’t be shaken off. It’s internal monologue. … Johnny’d told him earlier that he took him out because he’s always wound up. And maybe that’s true, and maybe how unwound he’s felt all day has proved that.

               The thing is, all that unwinding helped him realize that the little voice in his head- describing _everything_ as bad things or weird things- wasn’t an attempt to cover his bases. It was an attempt to be right if something crappy ever happened. But it was _wrong_ about skipping school today. It was wrong about his phone getting stolen, (well, it turned out alright, didn’t it?) and…

               And he’s just realizing that there’s one more thing it’s probably been wrong about all this time.

               If Max was _really_ making lists, if he was _really_ paying close enough attention to weigh the bad and the good, it would be no contest. Being Johnny’s boyfriend isn’t an uncategorizable “weird.” And it’s not bad, either.

              It’s a good thing. It’s a really, really good thing.

               And as Johnny slouches in the sun in the middle of the vacant street, cocking his head, Max wants him to know that, too. He did take him out today, after all.

               Max takes an even breath. “Uh, Johnny?” He wedges his phone into his pocket. Johnny straightens up. “Can I talk to you about something real quick?”

               Johnny isn’t too dense to recognize his tone. “Oh nooo.”

               “I know, I know, but bear with me,” he goes on, walking forward to make the space between them less awkwardly large. And to stall for time. For the rest of what he wants to say. “I just… you know. I figured I should tell you this now.”

               “Okay?”

               “That I like you a lot,” he says in one breath. He studies the sidewalk. “I like being your—your boyfriend. I dunno if you knew that, but I do; and whenever we hang out, and do things together, I actually have a lot of fun.”

              He briefly looks up. The smile is growing on Johnny’s face. “I just wanted you to know. Because I… I like the way things are. I really like doing this, and I don’t wanna _stop_ doing it.”

               Johnny is absolutely beaming. It’s almost blinding to look at. He shrugs and asks, simple as anything, “Why would we stop?”

               [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_3mMi5rwvk)

               … Max wasn’t anticipating that question. He wasn’t expecting something so _simple._ But to be fair, he wasn’t expecting he’d manage to get all that out, either.

               “I… I just thought—” He starts off awkwardly, and then stops. He shakes his head. “I mean, we wouldn’t! I mean, at least I don’t think we would.” His ears are warm. He’d run his hands through his hair if it weren’t for his hat.

              “B-but that’s why I’m rambling like a complete _monkey_ right now, Johnny, because…” He makes eye contact with Johnny again, and the words come to him, albeit maybe a little too fast. “Because I know how _I_ feel, and I want to know how you feel, so how do you feel?”

              Johnny blinks. He pulls a peculiar, amused looking smile. But it’s not enmity or mocking: he honestly does seem a little mystified. The gears in his head are turning to come up with a response. He raises a brow.

              “… You don’t know how I feel?”

              Max’s face, already hot, starts burning. When he gets no response, Johnny laughs a little, putting his fists on his hips. “God, Puckett, you need me to spell it out for ya?”

              Max squeezes his eyes shut and lets his shoulders drop. Maybe if he can’t see Johnny, Johnny can’t see him. He sighs, “Unfortunately.”

              “Well, that sucks,” Johnny says. Hearing the sound of his sneakers casually moving closer, Max opens his eyes again. Johnny is shrugging, crossing his arms. His smile… is still peculiar. “I mean, thas _fine,_ I totally get it! If ya gotta know, ya gotta know.”

              He takes two neat final steps forward, further shortening the already short distance between them. They’re almost toe to toe. Max holds Johnny’s jacket tightly in his fist. Why is he so close…?

              “But see, the problem here is, Max,” he says slyly. “I’ve just never been really good at words. Not as good as you, so…”

              Despite everything, Max cannot help but get a snark in at his own expense. “You must’ve not heard that speech—”

              “ _—So_ what I need ya to _do…_ ” Johnny interrupts more firmly, smirking.

              He grabs Max’s face- wonder if it burns his hands- takes a steady breath, and leans in close. “… Is pay attention.”

              And he kisses Max.

              Yeah, on the mouth. And their noses smush together, and Max’s eyes are wide, _wide_ open with shock even though Johnny’s are squeezed shut tight. Johnny is tense to the point of being frozen until Max, hardly moving an inch otherwise, robotically raises his hands and rests them on Johnny’s hips. At which point he slumps in relief, relaxing all at once.

              It’s all very clumsy, and rushed, and tween, but it’s certainly a kiss. It’s certainly Johnny kissing Max.

              It’s unclear just how long it is before Johnny finally separates them. He leans out to beam down on his boyfriend. His cheeks are red like his hair, but Max can’t look much better than he does. For a moment, they just stare at one another.

              “How’s that,” he nonchalantly asks, all in one exhale, like he hadn’t been breathing.

              “Yeah good,” Max manages. His voice is barely more than a squeak and his eyes are still wide. “Thanks.”

              Johnny laughs a sputtery laugh and clears his throat, running his hand into his hair. “A-alright, I—I better book it,” he breathlessly snickers, glancing away. He gives Max two light slaps on the cheek to knock the sense back into him, then sidesteps him and takes off running on the broken asphalt.

              Only once he’s out of view does Max regain control enough to slowly lift his hand and gently touch his fingers to his cheek. And his mouth. … Yeah, that would about cover it. That just happened to him. That was real. _That_ was _real._ Holy _crap._

              His flickering gaze makes it to the ground, and he blinks. He stoops to pick up the garment lying there.

              “Juh—” He chokes out. He coughs and whirls, calling after his boyfriend as he makes a running start toward a short wooden fence between two houses. “J-Johnny! Your jacket!”

              “Got like four of ‘em!” He cries back, waving Max off. “Seeya Monday, Mux!”

              Johnny hoists himself over the fence effortlessly, and he is gone.

              A puff of air escapes Max’s lips and his shoulders relax. The corner store would be… behind him. He should probably get going there soon to make sure his family knows he’s alive, considering he’s been missing in action for a good few hours. But for a moment, he simply gazes ahead, running all those hours back in his mind.

              “Seeya Monday,” he murmurs. And then he turns and starts walking, Johnny’s jacket hooked over his shoulder.

              What a _complete idiot_ he would have been to go to school today.

 

              The sun is still heading west as the corner store comes into view. It’ll still be a while before it actually touches the other hill. Either way, he’s happy to see the glowing sign of his home. He grins and rubs his fatigued face. His face feels dirty. His hands feel dirty. Here’s how Max figures it’s going to go: He’s going to go inside with the optimistic idea that he’s going to shower, he’s going to go to his room, and he’s going to immediately take a nap on his bed and wake up later this evening, having worn the same clothes for two days straight now. … He’s alright with that.

              Besides, he technically is wearing a new jacket.

              Just before walking into the door’s range, he turns and gives West Hill a quick look. It looks a lot closer than it did this morning. He laughs, the doors slide open, and he walks through, rubbing his shoulder muscle.

              Zoey- in mint little sister, not-having-been-running-around-outside-since-morning condition- posted at the cash register, raises her gaze to meet him and perks up at once.

              “Max!” She says, slipping under the counter door and rushing to meet him. Her little ponytail bounces on her head. “You’ve been gone forever, you missed Chinese food! Dad was about to come get you!” (Max has to hold back from grimacing at that.) “How come you didn’t answer your phone?”

              “Oh, it uh… died on me. They didn’t make a whole lot of phone chargers in the prehistoric times, so I don’t have a spare,” he explains, walking behind the counter with Zoey in tow. And following up the technical truth with a yes-nichal lie, “Anyway, I’ve been sleeping all day.”

              “You sure look tired…” Zoey comments, frowning.

              “I sure am tired,” Max agrees. He heads up the stairs toward the house. He feels so weightless- whether that’s because his feet are numb or because of other obvious stuff.

              “Hey, buddy-bear!” Comes the call from the house above.

              Dad Puckett stands at the top of the stairs and Max tells himself automatically that he’s not allowed to be annoyed by any of his fatherly shenanigans tonight. Not tonight.

              “You’re back!” He says with a welcoming smile, patting Max on the shoulder as he crosses into the house. “How are you feeling…?”

              “A lot better, actually,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck. He wonders how red his face is. He still _feels_ it… “Very, uh, good.”

              Looking down, he notices the grass stains on his pants. Whoops. He worries his dad might, but he just asks, “How was it over at the Jhonny’s?” Max walks across the den, subconsciously pulling at the sleeves of Johnny’s jacket. He’s got some bruisey elbows to hide, too. “It was nice of Johnny’s family to take care of you today.”

              “Oh yeah, totally.” He waves his dad off. Behind the sunken living room, he leans on the couch. “They said not to mention it. They said literally to never mention it ever. They were kind of weirdly specific about that.”

              “Huh.” Dad shrugs. And knowing him, that’ll very well be the last of it.

              “But yeah. I had a good time.”

              “Dad said you were puking,” Zoey says, hanging on the other side of the banister.

              Max raises his eyebrows at her. “Are you judging me?”

              “Where’d that jacket come from?” She presses on, grinning.

              “Welp, later!” Max replies, straightening up in the next breath. Good time to split. He gives a tip of his hat to his sister and father and leaves the two of them for the relative silence of his bedroom.

              The door creaks open and he smiles gently into the faint light. His shoes are off before he closes the door behind him. It’s a strange feeling to be back in your room after you’ve been away from it for a while. Max uses sleeping in his bed to keep track of the days going by, which in turn has made these past two almost a blur. … Especially _this_ day.

              He can’t stop mentally playing all of it back. It started once Johnny left and it hasn’t stopped. And for once, he’s not complaining about his cyclical mind. He’d like to hang onto it.

              Lots of big things happen. (Maybe some more of those big things will happen with Johnny. And hey, if the two of them stick together long, they undoubtedly will.) So perhaps today isn’t going to remain so clear in his mind forever. But he certainly hopes it does. Because maybe the intervening internal monologue doesn’t stop, and maybe he gets wound up again, and maybe he has to keep shutting down the broken base-covering logic, but today, Max has just been given irrefutable proof that warpaths like these have the potential to turn out just fine.

              Maybe even better than fine.

              As he walks toward his bed, keeping that one thought in the front of his mind, he doesn’t notice what his ankle hooks on in the middle of his room and ultimately sends him toppling to the floor. But as he lies there face-down, he has a pretty good guess. It’s the strap of his backpack.

              “There it is,” he declares, groaning.

              [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvzlEfBYKVw&index=7&list=PLYbOGIUGkKyjGV04z9Vxpi4X2xF_oYOKq)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: imagine, if you will, a credits sequence set to the cure’s friday i’m in love, with all credits being mine and zack’s names ad nauseum. oh and the song rights. because we’ve finally reached the end!
> 
> man, i’ve written a few fics in my day. but none of them had ever felt quite as complete as first friday does. i’m giving a speech by the way. there was this feeling i kept getting throughout the whole writing process that drove me forward with ENTHUSIASM, and when i got done, had my brain constantly turning to write more of it even though it was finished. 
> 
> i think it was that for the first time i wasn’t trying to write a smaller part of a bigger story, but that i really was trying to write a story that’s… new? i borrowed zack’s characters, zack’s setting, a bunch of songs, a couple references, and one hometown event and tried making something that stands on its own. 
> 
> so i really hope this has stood on its own! that, you know, it was as much of a blast to read as it was to write. as small and as simple as it is. 
> 
> i’m praying i find something new to write with max and johnny one of these days! (apart from drabbles of course.) until then, see you on my trashy sideblog. and expect doodles and other silly FF side-crap! 
> 
> (ANN: my trashy sideblog, by the way, is bullymagnettrash on tumblr. go ahead and check it out if that's your style. and if i haven't said it before, thanks for reading!)


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